Interview about Linux-libre to nixsanctuary.com
- What is your key role in Linux-libre development at the moment? Would it be wrong to call you Mr Linus of Linux-libre?
- How is Linux-libre different from the Linux kernel? Is it all about the binary blobs? Or is there much more to it in terms of security, privacy and open hardware development?
I'm a janitor, which is honorable and purposeful, requires some skill and sometimes intense labor, but is not comparable to the effort, responsibility and leadership positions of e.g. Mr Torvalds in the kernel Linux, or by Dr Stallman in the GNU Project.
I am in charge of figuring out what needs to be cleaned up, and what can stay, and of not making too much of a mess in the process so that, once I take the garbage out, things remain functional. Of course I'm talking about things that don't run on garbage. Those that do are fundamentally incompatible with my job, and with your freedom.
Now, I'm a bit of a hi-tech janitor, so instead of just cleaning things up myself, I also teach some bots to do the cleaning, and to look for garbage, so I don't have to do that over and over and over. So most of the time I, and more recently co-maintainer Jason Self, can just call the robots in when a new upstream release is out, and then check that they've done their job well, adjusting as needed.
Mr Torvalds started the kernel Linux, wrote a huge amount of code for it, manages a large community of contributors, decides when it's time to release and when it's time to test a little more.
I did not start Linux-libre (Jeff Moe did), there's been little room for contributors (programming the bots doesn't take so much effort), and we follow the upstream release schedule as closely as we can.
More importantly, I care a lot about making sure Linux-libre is released in accordance with the values of Free Software. He, despite having identified with Free Software till around mid nineties, doesn't seem to mind that bits and pieces of Linux don't fit in with the values of our movement, or even with the definition adopted by the dissident community in which Linux is mistaken as an icon and a shining example of something that it actually isn't.
Here I'm not talking about people who refer to the GNU Operating System as Linux, I'm talking about there being parts of the kernel Linux for which no source code is available, and whose included binaries are distributed under obnoxious licenses that prohibit modification or even reverse engineering. These parts, and therefore the whole containing them, are not Free Software, and are not Open-Source Software either. I kid you not: the famous package distributed by Mr Torvalds, held as the canonical example of Open Source Software, does not meet the definition of Open Source Software.
Open Source misses the point, but it seems to do so with a vengeance and with intent. Its exploitation resembles some faith-based businesses (fake churches) in that they are about getting well-meaning, faithful people to contribute under false pretenses: freedom-loving people are misled into contributing their time, loyalty and effort to advance projects that try to be perceived as having a commitment to freedom, despite taking positions and making decisions that progressively drive users away from freedom.
Like, Linux contains binary blobs, and it depends on a much larger collection of blobs, whose canonical (yet incomplete) distribution has grown to over half the size of the "source" distribution of the kernel Linux. The kernel grows fast, but the blobs grow so much faster! They used to be separate programs, now some of them are entire operating systems. There's even one that contains a copy of the kernel Linux itself. So, you see, labeling the kernel Linux, as well as the GNU/Linux distributions that contain it and the blobs it demands, as Open Source Software, as aligned with the pursuit of Software Freedom... that's a bit of a scam, if you ask me. And if they're honest about the goal, their strategy to pursue it has been clearly self-defeating: the more they embrace blobs, the farther their users get from freedom, and the harder it becomes to achieve freedom.
Me, I devote my time and energy for users and developers to not be fooled this way; for us to have freedom, or at least a path to it, within our reach.
So, summing up the answer to the question, my role in GNU Linux-libre is very much unlike Mr Torvalds' in Linux.
I generally prefer to write "kernel Linux", because "Linux kernel" is often misunderstood and mistranslated as if it meant "kernel of Linux". That makes no sense, given that Linux is a kernel, but a lot of people have been misled into believing it is more than a kernel.
Linux-libre is a slightly modified version of the kernel Linux. We strive to make minimal changes to make Linux compliant with the GNU Free System Distribution Guidelines.