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Concept
Linux-libre
Summary
Linux-libre is a modified version of the Linux kernel that contains no binary blobs, obfuscated code, or code released under proprietary licenses. In the Linux kernel, they are mostly used for proprietary firmware images. While generally redistributable, binary blobs do not give the user the freedom to audit, modify, or, consequently, redistribute their modified versions. The GNU Project keeps Linux-libre in synchronization with the mainline Linux kernel.
The Linux kernel started to include binary blobs in 1996. The work to clear out the binary blobs began in 2006 with gNewSense's find-firmware and gen-kernel. This work was taken further by the BLAG Linux distribution in 2007 when deblob and Linux-libre was born.
Linux-libre was first released by the Free Software Foundation Latin America (FSFLA), then endorsed by the Free Software Foundation (FSF) as a valuable component for the totally free Linux distributions. It became a GNU package in March 2012. Alexandre Oliva is the project maintainer.
The removal process is achieved by using a script called deblob-main. This script is inspired by the one used for gNewSense. Jeff Moe made subsequent modifications to meet certain requirements for its use with the BLAG Linux and GNU distribution. There is another script called deblob-check, which is used to check if a kernel source file, a patch or a compressed sources file still contains software which is suspected of being proprietary.
Aside from the primary intended effect of running a system with only free software, the practical consequences of removing device firmware that a user is not allowed to study or modify has both positive and negative effects.
Removal of device firmware can be considered an advantage for security and stability, when the firmware cannot be audited for bugs, for security problems, and for malicious operations such as backdoors, or when the firmware cannot be fixed by the Linux kernel maintainers themselves, even if they know of problems.
Official source
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