this post was submitted on 20 Nov 2025
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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Fedora and Debian are 100% free operating systems that only include free software.
The FSF does not like them because they include non-free firmware.
The debate is entirely how you define what is software and what is hardware.
How is it 100% free if it has non free firmware? Lol.
Your hardware is 100% "not free". It has proprietary firmware. Lots of it. Most of it is for internal chips that you are not even aware of. The hardware you are running is not free. And it has firmware. Clear?
So, your position is that hardware that let's you upgrade some of this firmware, hardware that let's you control what bits get put on it, is LESS free than hardware that does not let you see or control that. How greater control is less free is totally beyond me.
And the reason you think this is because you actually have the non-free bits that make up a firmware upgrade. So you tell yourself that not touching this upgrade is a good thing because that upgrade is "proprietary". Except that you are still running proprietary firmware for the exact same hardware. It needs firmware to work. The firmware you are downloading is just an upgrade.
Either you are running hardware that does not let you upgrade its firmware but that still has firmware nonetheless or you are running hardware with firmware that could be upgraded but you are refusing to upgrade it.
Either way, you have done absolutely nothing to advance your "freedom". Honestly, it just boggles my mind.
Now, if there really was hardware out there that could be run without using any proprietary bits, that would be a different story. If you were willing to run such hardware, I would buy your ideological purity story. But we all know that this is not the hardware you are running. If you are not typing these comments on x86-64 than it is on ARM. Either way, your words are going through proprietary firmware before they get to me (even if you run these FSF approved distros).
I look forward to the day when truly free hardware exists and I can lose this argument to you. I truly do.
Your hardware is most likely not free and open source. If you use non-free hardware, it is better to have security fixes then leave it unpatched. If you are using non-free hardware it doesn't matter how free your distro is, you still must depend on hardware blackboxes. Your hardware can directly interact with your distro and do something malicious regardless of the presence of firmware blobs.
Those distros are fully free, but acknowledge that hardware isn't in most cases. And like responsible and reasonable developers they choose what is best for stability and security.
Exactly, the Intel TPM is almost certainly a literal NSA backdoor, as claimed by the Chinese government (which would explain Microsoft giving up Windows market share by requiring that for Win 11). When your CPU has its own network stack in a secure enclave that is inherently its own OS basically, how does running a pure open source OS on top of that mitigate anything?