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GNU Boot joins FSF fiscal sponsorship program
The Free Software Foundation (FSF) announced today that GNU Boot is its latest fiscally sponsored project. GNU Boot is a libre, ethical replacement for the nonfree BIOS or UEFI, which is software found in virtually all personal computers in the world today.
"The BIOS is a delicate but essential part of software freedom for computing today," said Zoë Kooyman, executive director of the FSF. "GNU Boot aims to make sure that we can continue using our computers in freedom. With the way it builds on the work of others to replace UEFI, we know it can remain firm in the free software philosophy and stay vital to digital autonomy and user freedom." Free boot firmware, such as GNU Boot, is responsible for loading the computer's operating system.
The work done by GNU Boot contributors has similarities to work done by GNU/Linux distributions: they package software like Coreboot or GNU GRUB, contribute to the upstream repositories of these projects, and assist them with documentation, among other tasks.
GNU Boot was founded in 2022 by Denis "GNUtoo" Carikli and Adrien "neox" Bourmault. The long-term goal for GNU Boot is to allow users and contributors to rely on GNU Boot without requiring them to learn domain-specific skills. Projects like GNU Guix or Trisquel are GNU Boot's model in this regard. As with GNU Guix, the GNU Boot project has also made a point of focusing on software reproducibility.