Librem 15: A Free/Libre and Open Source Laptop That Respects Your Essential Freedoms

We offer two graphics cards, Intel Video, and nVidia 3D Controller. The Intel is freed, the nVidia 3D Controller, is optional, but uses the nouveou driver in the kernel, BUT the nVidia BIOS binary.

We are seeking RYF, and have been working with the FSF and RMS to gain that. The last issue for us is Intel's FSP binary, so we're completely free from the bootloader, kernel, OS, and all software, since we intall Trisquel by default!

The freedom deconstructed link was not meant to be misleading, but to clearly state where things are! I was hoping to make it clear by showing what is remaining, and the solid work of Trisquel, and other free software.

The thing we offer that nobody has before, is that we as a manufacturer are pushing the free software agenda into the manufacturing pipeline, you'd be surprised how a little effort goes a long way, and we are devoted to it. So the real question is do you want to help back a company that believes what you believe?

We have the goal of RYF endorsement, but to do that we have to free the BIOS. We don't plan on stopping there, we plan on freeing all component hardware firmware. You're right about not being big enough right now to have financial leverage, but we ARE sitting down at the table, with the backing of users, we can actually change the status quo.

Oops! I just read the bottom of the CrowdSupply page, and it says the project was started by a Todd Weaver, so I was mistaken when I said it's not obvious who's behind it. It looks like he is the CEO of a Seattle-based company called Ivi, Inc. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivi%2C_Inc.)

@jxself
Purism claims the laptop's NVIDIA card fully works with the nouveau driver, and it has a wireless card that works with the ath9k driver.

"seems too good to be true."

I had that feeling myself.

Don't know what to make of it. Sounds good, feels bad for some reason.

Well, it's smart to be cautious, since building trust is usually a game of time. But to answer your concern, I, Todd Weaver, am behind it, you can see from my past I enjoy fighting the status quo, and am excited to put that effort into freeing hardware. We may get some FSF support prior to endorsement, so that should help with the trust game. I've been working with RMS and FSF for quite awhile.

I'd like to apologize for us updating wordpress and it changing the copyright footer within the theme, we have restored it back to CC-By-SA, which I think suffices.

No vPro or TXT on the chosen processor: http://ark.intel.com/products/78933/Intel-Core-i7-4712MQ-Processor-6M-Cache-up-to-3_30-GHz?q=i7-4712MQ

It does come with the Intel FSP binary, and the optional nVidia GPU binary (optional because you could use the Intel video).

We avoid any chips that are vPro, so no we do not use AMT.

It's valuable to Free software for sure. But I wouldnt call it a huge win because Think Penguin, Los Alamos and a few other vendors were offering Trisquel preinstalled services for a while.

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Hey Chris,

I enjoyed reading your perspective on this issue. I agree that project
like this is certainly a necessary one. However this specific project
may not be it.

Best,
Lev Lazinskiy
https://levlaz.org

On 11/24/2014 08:18 PM, name at domain wrote:
> I think there are a lot of people in the free software community
> with objections with the claims being made. My hands aren't tied
> like some so I'll point out some of the other issues.
>
> 1. There have been numerous efforts to free laptops in the past
> with some successes. It's not for a lack of trying that
> ThinkPenguin's not succeed. Resolving all the issues with modern
> X86 systems is a near impossible feat. We've made some effort in
> this department, but it's more of a token gesture and the laptops
> would only be a little bit better. If you refurbish an older laptop
> it is easier.
>
> 2. License violations and a lack of understanding about what free
> software is. If something needs a binary blob it's not free
> software. I'd never try to make that claim. At best I'd describe
> our laptops as being free software friendly at an OS level. That is
> everything is going to work with free software distributions even
> though there are unfortunately non-free pieces critical to all
> modern laptops (BIOS, micro-code, and similar firmware).
>
> 3. NVIDIA is not cooperative so the support for the graphics using
> the reverse engineered nouveau driver is years behind- it simply
> isn't possible to get half-way decent support for the GT840M
> graphics in this system at this time. Of the people who have tried
> I know there were major issues and no successes as far as I've
> heard. Evidence on how Todd achieved some level of success in
> getting this to work would be a first step, but it still isn't a
> good design choice from a free software angle. Even if you succeed
> it's not going to work well enough to claim support and so
> including it at all is disingenuous. People will buy with certain
> expectations- expectations that Todd can't possibly meet.
>
> 4. Intel's not cooperative on the coreboot front. Why would you
> even think that they'd cooperate now? Google tried to get them to
> release code for the Chromebook. They refused. The coreboot
> developer have been begging for Intel to cooperate for years.
> $250,000 USD isn't going to cut it when millions are already been
> poured into the effort. Intel does cooperate on the graphics front
> though. There simply is no perfect or even good solution to these
> problems.
>
> 5. "Designed" and “manufacturer” are interesting choice of words.
> Todd makes it sound like he actually designed a new board for this.
> There are few actual “manufacturers” or companies designing pretty
> much anything. Major companies usually utilize one of a handful of
> companies specialized in the given arena to design and/or
> manufacture. Components are usually designed by one of a few big
> companies valued at billions of dollars (Intel, Broadcom, Atheros,
> etc, not Dell, HP, Lenovo, etc). I'm not questioning his intention
> to design a product or support the product. That's fair game.
> Everybody does it. However I think his choice of wording gets
> dangerously close to fraud. It is misleading territory at a
> minimum. If he was to become a manufacturer he would need a lot
> more than $250,000 USD. He should focus on the overall product
> design rather than claiming to have designed or manufactured
> something uniquely new- for which simply isn't likely in this
> context.
>
> 6. I'm pretty confident Todd didn't talk to the FSF as stated.
> Comments made elsewhere by people in the know implied the project
> was unknown to the FSF until after it had been announced.
>
> I have some background knowledge of this laptop. It's designed by
> a Chinese company with ties to the Chinese government. It is
> actually a clone of Apple's product lineup and a poor machine to
> build a free software product off. In China you can get these
> machines from shady backstreet vendors with the actual Apple logo.
> You can actually see just how rampant trademark infringement is
> here:
> http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2011-07/20/fake-apple-stores.
> These systems are flat out unsafe. These machines are of extremely
> poor quality. I've actually “seen” other similar models get seized
> on import. It won't happen every time as the US doesn't have many
> enforcers at the border scanning for shipments of infringing or
> illegal product, but it does happen.
>
> I do think we need a campaign like this, but we should work with
> one of the manufacturers whose got someI think there are a lot of
> people in the free software community with objections with the
> claims being made. My hands aren't tied like some so I'll point out
> some of the other issues.
>
> 1. There have been numerous efforts to free laptops in the past
> with some successes. It's not for a lack of trying that
> ThinkPenguin's not succeed. Resolving all the issues with modern
> X86 systems is a near impossible feat. We've made some effort in
> this department, but it's more of a token gesture and the laptops
> would only be a little bit better. If you refurbish an older laptop
> it is easier.
>
> 2. License violations and a lack of understanding about what free
> software is. If something needs a binary blob it's not free
> software. I'd never try to make that claim. At best I'd describe
> our laptops as being free software friendly at an OS level. That is
> everything is going to work with free software distributions even
> though there are unfortunately non-free pieces critical to all
> modern laptops (BIOS, micro-code, and similar firmware).
>
> 3. NVIDIA is not cooperative so the support for the graphics using
> the reverse engineered nouveau driver is years behind- it simply
> isn't possible to get half-way decent support for the GT840M
> graphics in this system at this time. Of the people who have tried
> I know there were major issues and no successes as far as I've
> heard. Evidence on how Todd achieved some level of success in
> getting this to work would be a first step, but it still isn't a
> good design choice from a free software angle. Even if you succeed
> it's not going to work well enough to claim support and so
> including it at all is disingenuous. People will buy with certain
> expectations- expectations that Todd can't possibly meet.
>
> 4. Intel's not cooperative on the coreboot front. Why would you
> even think that they'd cooperate now? Google tried to get them to
> release code for the Chromebook. They refused. The coreboot
> developer have been begging for Intel to cooperate for years.
> $250,000 USD isn't going to cut it when millions are already been
> poured into the effort. Intel does cooperate on the graphics front
> though. There simply is no perfect or even good solution to these
> problems.
>
> 5. "Designed" and “manufacturer” are interesting choice of words.
> Todd makes it sound like he actually designed a new board for this.
> There are few actual “manufacturers” or companies designing pretty
> much anything. Major companies usually utilize one of a handful of
> companies specialized in the given arena to design and/or
> manufacture. Components are usually designed by one of a few big
> companies valued at billions of dollars (Intel, Broadcom, Atheros,
> etc, not Dell, HP, Lenovo, etc). I'm not questioning his intention
> to design a product or support the product. That's fair game.
> Everybody does it. However I think his choice of wording gets
> dangerously close to fraud. It is misleading territory at a
> minimum. If he was to become a manufacturer he would need a lot
> more than $250,000 USD. He should focus on the overall product
> design rather than claiming to have designed or manufactured
> something uniquely new- for which simply isn't likely in this
> context.
>
> 6. I'm pretty confident Todd didn't talk to the FSF as stated.
> Comments made elsewhere by people in the know implied the project
> was unknown to the FSF until after it had been announced.
>
> I have some background knowledge of this laptop. It's designed by
> a Chinese company with ties to the Chinese government. It is
> actually a clone of Apple's product lineup and a poor machine to
> build a free software product off. In China you can get these
> machines from shady backstreet vendors with the actual Apple logo.
> You can actually see just how rampant trademark infringement is
> here:
> http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2011-07/20/fake-apple-stores.
> These systems are flat out unsafe. These machines are of extremely
> poor quality. I've actually “seen” other similar models get seized
> on import. It won't happen every time as the US doesn't have many
> enforcers at the border scanning for shipments of infringing or
> illegal product, but it does happen.
>
> I do think we need a campaign like this, but we should work with
> one of the manufacturers whose got something we can actually build
> a free laptop from. I've talked with others about non-x86 hardware
> that might work and dollar amounts that are similar to what Todds
> trying to raise.
>
> It'll be a tragedy if Todd's successful because there is real
> non-x86 hardware that could potentially be totally freed. It will
> take $250,000+ to pull off the manufacture of the laptops (or
> sourcing of them anyway), developers (to port a distribution), and
> resources (time and energy to free it). Unfortunately
> ThinkPenguin's got other projects on the table right now and this
> is something that really needs a strong focus of time, cooperation,
> and resources to pull off. Todd has the time, but should have
> worked with the FSF on this and done it right.
>
> thing we can actually build a free laptop from. I've talked with
> others about non-x86 hardware that might work and dollar amounts
> that are similar to what Todds trying to raise.
>
> It'll be a tragedy if Todd's successful because there is real
> non-x86 hardware that could potentially be totally freed. It will
> take $250,000+ to pull off the manufacture of the laptops (or
> sourcing of them anyway), developers (to port a distribution), and
> resources (time and energy to free it). Unfortunately
> ThinkPenguin's got other projects on the table right now and this
> is something that really needs a strong focus of time, cooperation,
> and resources to pull off. Todd has the time, but should have
> worked with the FSF on this and done it right.
>
>
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1
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=B/vi
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

25-11-2014 02:18:50 name at domain:
> I think there are a lot of people in the free software
community with
> objections with the claims being made. My hands aren't
tied like some so
> I'll point out some of the other issues.
>
> 1. There have been numerous efforts to free laptops in the
past with some
> successes. It's not for a lack of trying that ThinkPenguin's
not succeed.
> Resolving all the issues with modern X86 systems is a
near impossible feat.
> We've made some effort in this department, but it's more
of a token gesture
> and the laptops would only be a little bit better. If you
refurbish an older
> laptop it is easier.
>
> 2. License violations and a lack of understanding about
what free software
> is. If something needs a binary blob it's not free software.
I'd never try
> to make that claim. At best I'd describe our laptops as
being free software
> friendly at an OS level. That is everything is going to work
with free
> software distributions even though there are unfortunately
non-free pieces
> critical to all modern laptops (BIOS, micro-code, and
similar firmware).
>
> 3. NVIDIA is not cooperative so the support for the
graphics using the
> reverse engineered nouveau driver is years behind- it
simply isn't possible
> to get half-way decent support for the GT840M graphics
in this system at
> this time. Of the people who have tried I know there were
major issues and
> no successes as far as I've heard. Evidence on how Todd
achieved some level
> of success in getting this to work would be a first step,
but it still
> isn't a good design choice from a free software angle.
Even if you succeed
> it's not going to work well enough to claim support and so
including it at
> all is disingenuous. People will buy with certain
expectations-
> expectations that Todd can't possibly meet.
>
> 4. Intel's not cooperative on the coreboot front. Why
would you even think
> that they'd cooperate now? Google tried to get them to
release code for the
> Chromebook. They refused. The coreboot developer have
been begging for Intel
> to cooperate for years. $250,000 USD isn't going to cut it
when millions
> are already been poured into the effort. Intel does
cooperate on the
> graphics front though. There simply is no perfect or even
good solution to
> these problems.
>
> 5. "Designed" and “manufacturer” are interesting choice
of words. Todd
> makes it sound like he actually designed a new board for
this. There are few
> actual “manufacturers” or companies designing pretty
much anything. Major
> companies usually utilize one of a handful of companies
specialized in the
> given arena to design and/or manufacture. Components
are usually designed
> by one of a few big companies valued at billions of dollars
(Intel,
> Broadcom, Atheros, etc, not Dell, HP, Lenovo, etc). I'm
not questioning his
> intention to design a product or support the product.
That's fair game.
> Everybody does it. However I think his choice of wording
gets dangerously
> close to fraud. It is misleading territory at a minimum. If he
was to
> become a manufacturer he would need a lot more than
$250,000 USD. He should
> focus on the overall product design rather than claiming to
have designed
> or manufactured something uniquely new- for which
simply isn't likely in
> this context.
>
> 6. I'm pretty confident Todd didn't talk to the FSF as
stated. Comments made
> elsewhere by people in the know implied the project was
unknown to the FSF
> until after it had been announced.
>
> I have some background knowledge of this laptop. It's
designed by a Chinese
> company with ties to the Chinese government. It is
actually a clone of
> Apple's product lineup and a poor machine to build a free
software product
> off. In China you can get these machines from shady
backstreet vendors with
> the actual Apple logo. You can actually see just how
rampant trademark
> infringement is here:
> http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2011-07/20/fake-apple-stores. These
> systems are flat out unsafe. These machines are of
extremely poor quality.
> I've actually “seen” other similar models get seized on
import. It won't
> happen every time as the US doesn't have many enforcers
at the border
> scanning for shipments of infringing or illegal product, but
it does happen.
>
> I do think we need a campaign like this, but we should
work with one of the
> manufacturers whose got someI think there are a lot of
people in the free
> software community with objections with the claims being
made. My hands
> aren't tied like some so I'll point out some of the other
issues.
>
> 1. There have been numerous efforts to free laptops in the
past with some
> successes. It's not for a lack of trying that ThinkPenguin's
not succeed.
> Resolving all the issues with modern X86 systems is a
near impossible feat.
> We've made some effort in this department, but it's more
of a token gesture
> and the laptops would only be a little bit better. If you
refurbish an older
> laptop it is easier.
>
> 2. License violations and a lack of understanding about
what free software
> is. If something needs a binary blob it's not free software.
I'd never try
> to make that claim. At best I'd describe our laptops as
being free software
> friendly at an OS level. That is everything is going to work
with free
> software distributions even though there are unfortunately
non-free pieces
> critical to all modern laptops (BIOS, micro-code, and
similar firmware).
>
> 3. NVIDIA is not cooperative so the support for the
graphics using the
> reverse engineered nouveau driver is years behind- it
simply isn't possible
> to get half-way decent support for the GT840M graphics
in this system at
> this time. Of the people who have tried I know there were
major issues and
> no successes as far as I've heard. Evidence on how Todd
achieved some level
> of success in getting this to work would be a first step,
but it still
> isn't a good design choice from a free software angle.
Even if you succeed
> it's not going to work well enough to claim support and so
including it at
> all is disingenuous. People will buy with certain
expectations-
> expectations that Todd can't possibly meet.
>
> 4. Intel's not cooperative on the coreboot front. Why
would you even think
> that they'd cooperate now? Google tried to get them to
release code for the
> Chromebook. They refused. The coreboot developer have
been begging for Intel
> to cooperate for years. $250,000 USD isn't going to cut it
when millions
> are already been poured into the effort. Intel does
cooperate on the
> graphics front though. There simply is no perfect or even
good solution to
> these problems.
>
> 5. "Designed" and “manufacturer” are interesting choice
of words. Todd
> makes it sound like he actually designed a new board for
this. There are few
> actual “manufacturers” or companies designing pretty
much anything. Major
> companies usually utilize one of a handful of companies
specialized in the
> given arena to design and/or manufacture. Components
are usually designed
> by one of a few big companies valued at billions of dollars
(Intel,
> Broadcom, Atheros, etc, not Dell, HP, Lenovo, etc). I'm
not questioning his
> intention to design a product or support the product.
That's fair game.
> Everybody does it. However I think his choice of wording
gets dangerously
> close to fraud. It is misleading territory at a minimum. If he
was to
> become a manufacturer he would need a lot more than
$250,000 USD. He should
> focus on the overall product design rather than claiming to
have designed
> or manufactured something uniquely new- for which
simply isn't likely in
> this context.
>
> 6. I'm pretty confident Todd didn't talk to the FSF as
stated. Comments made
> elsewhere by people in the know implied the project was
unknown to the FSF
> until after it had been announced.
>
> I have some background knowledge of this laptop. It's
designed by a Chinese
> company with ties to the Chinese government. It is
actually a clone of
> Apple's product lineup and a poor machine to build a free
software product
> off. In China you can get these machines from shady
backstreet vendors with
> the actual Apple logo. You can actually see just how
rampant trademark
> infringement is here:
> http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2011-07/20/fake-apple-stores. These
> systems are flat out unsafe. These machines are of
extremely poor quality.
> I've actually “seen” other similar models get seized on
import. It won't
> happen every time as the US doesn't have many enforcers
at the border
> scanning for shipments of infringing or illegal product, but
it does happen.
>
> I do think we need a campaign like this, but we should
work with one of the
> manufacturers whose got something we can actually build
a free laptop from.
> I've talked with others about non-x86 hardware that might
work and dollar
> amounts that are similar to what Todds trying to raise.
>
> It'll be a tragedy if Todd's successful because there is real
non-x86
> hardware that could potentially be totally freed. It will take
$250,000+ to
> pull off the manufacture of the laptops (or sourcing of
them anyway),
> developers (to port a distribution), and resources (time
and energy to free
> it). Unfortunately ThinkPenguin's got other projects on the
table right now
> and this is something that really needs a strong focus of
time, cooperation,
> and resources to pull off. Todd has the time, but should
have worked with
> the FSF on this and done it right.
>
> thing we can actually build a free laptop from. I've talked
with others
> about non-x86 hardware that might work and dollar
amounts that are similar
> to what Todds trying to raise.
>
> It'll be a tragedy if Todd's successful because there is real
non-x86
> hardware that could potentially be totally freed. It will take
$250,000+ to
> pull off the manufacture of the laptops (or sourcing of
them anyway),
> developers (to port a distribution), and resources (time
and energy to free
> it). Unfortunately ThinkPenguin's got other projects on the
table right now
> and this is something that really needs a strong focus of
time, cooperation,
> and resources to pull off. Todd has the time, but should
have worked with
> the FSF on this and done it right.

+1

Best regards, ADFENO.
Have a nice day.

--
Assinatura automática – português brasileiro:
– Blogue: http://adfeno.wordpress.com/
– Favor não enviar-me documentos do Microsoft Office ou
Apple
iWork. Ao invés disso, envie documentos em
OpenDocument!
http://fsf.org/campaigns/opendocument/
– Se eu não te desejar um bom dia em meus e-mails, minhas
postagens, ou meus comentários; isto significa que estes
foram
enviados por terceiros.

Automatic signature – North American English:
– Blog: http://adfeno.wordpress.com/
– Please do not send me Microsoft Office or Apple iWork
documents. Instead, send OpenDocument documents!
http://fsf.org/campaigns/opendocument/
– If I don't wish you a nice day in my emails, my posts, or
my
comments; this means that these were sent by third parties.

ThinkPenguin post, take with a grain of salt, since they'd see anybody selling hardware as competition, not as furthering a movement. Time will tell...

I still did not understand if it is certain that the Librem 15 will use CoreBoot or if Todd Weaver only hopes to convince Intel to make CoreBoot work on the chosen motherboard.

If it will not use CoreBoot, then there is not much difference with a cheap laptop with an Intel graphical chipset + a freedom-respecting Wifi adapter. You would indeed have great trouble finding out what Wifi chipset that comes with a (new) laptop. You should then consider it as an additional cost on top of that of the laptop (unless you are "feeling lucky"). You can buy such an adapter from ThinkPenguin or Tehnoetic and be sure it will work with Linux-libre, hence Trisquel. Anyway the cost of the separate adapter is kind of negligible w.r.t. that of the rest of the hardware.

The Librem is definitely not manufactured by Clevo. You can't necessarily tell by looking at a unit which company manufactured it, but it's pretty obvious in this case its not Clevo given the boundaries being worked within.

Any specific Intel backdoors that you know to work without nonfree
software in the boot firmware flash?

I personally like boot firmware being in writable media: I fixed some
bugs and applied fixes done by others to the one in my laptop. If it
was readonly, the laptop wouldn't be useful without nonfree wifi
firmware (or external wifi adapter) and it would provide me no
interesting coreboot usage experience.

My understanding of the AMD line-up is that they too are shipping with similar features so I wouldn't exactly suggest jumping to AMD. It would probably be best to avoid x86 altogether, but it's not without its difficulties.

Glad to see the NVIDIA graphics are gone. What is with the CPU though? It seems like a worse choice. The FCBGA1364 is not a socketed CPU so you can't change it even. I'm also lost as to how one can change the spec mid-way through a campaign. Doesn't that violate some sort of ethics and rules upon the platforms which the campaign is being run? It seems like he should re-start the campaign if he is going to make significant changes like this.

Haven't watched the video. I'll probably do it later. Maybe there is more detail in it as to the reasoning behind all this.