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1. Embed this notice
   David Revoy (davidrevoy@framapiaf.org)'s status on Tuesday, 18-Aug-2026 05:09:33 JST David Revoy

   RE: https://mastodon.social/@hbons/117099208164126991

   Disgusting. Pausing my volunteer tablet driver contributions and any future Linux-related work until The Linux Foundation grows a bit of ethics. If they don’t change, I’ll look elsewhere.

   ➡️ Edit: Thanks to all your comments and feedback, I now see I'm reacting against The Linux Foundation’s misbehavior, not the open-source Linux community and ecosystem itself. They’re separate entities; I needed that reminder. My frustration is with that corp, not the code. I'll reconsider my pause.

   • Embed this notice
     SuperDicq (superdicq@minidisc.tokyo)'s status on Tuesday, 18-Aug-2026 05:09:31 JST SuperDicq

     in reply to

     @davidrevoy@framapiaf.org Driver development is still useful for the rest of us. You don't hurt the Linux Foundation by stopping driver development, but you do hurt everyone else. Linux is free software and it belongs to all of us. The best thing you can do is run Linux-Libre, which removes all the proprietary blobs they added of the years.

   • Embed this notice
     Alexandre Oliva (lxo@snac.lx.oliva.nom.br)'s status on Tuesday, 18-Aug-2026 22:02:51 JST Alexandre Oliva

     in reply to

     • Hylke Bons 🥜
     I share your pain
     
     here's a suggestion: next time, wait a few days for the end of the promo and only then call out their slopwork, so as to not give the sloppy promo a boost
     
     Cc: @hbons@mastodon.social
     
   • Embed this notice
     SuperDicq (superdicq@minidisc.tokyo)'s status on Wednesday, 19-Aug-2026 22:11:55 JST SuperDicq

     in reply to

     • 翠星石

     @Suiseiseki@freesoftwareextremist.com @davidrevoy@framapiaf.org I have never looked at actual statistics of how big of a portion of the kernel source tree is actually blobs. I assume most of it is device specific garbage that you never execute anyway?

   • Embed this notice
     翠星石 (suiseiseki@freesoftwareextremist.com)'s status on Wednesday, 19-Aug-2026 22:11:56 JST 翠星石

     in reply to

     • SuperDicq
     @SuperDicq @davidrevoy Sorry to break it to you, but in excess of 75% of Linux is proprietary software and <25% of Linux is source-available - only GNU Linux-libre makes it free software.
     
     The developers are doing their best to make Linux proprietary slopware too, so that <25% that is free software seems to be set to shrink.
   • Embed this notice
     SuperDicq (superdicq@minidisc.tokyo)'s status on Wednesday, 19-Aug-2026 22:17:44 JST SuperDicq

     in reply to

     • 翠星石

     @Suiseiseki@freesoftwareextremist.com @davidrevoy@framapiaf.org I know but I'm still kind of interested in the actual numbers.

   • Embed this notice
     翠星石 (suiseiseki@freesoftwareextremist.com)'s status on Wednesday, 19-Aug-2026 22:17:45 JST 翠星石

     in reply to

     • SuperDicq
     @SuperDicq @davidrevoy The proprietary software still denies you the 4 freedoms, even if you never execute it.
   • Embed this notice
     SuperDicq (superdicq@minidisc.tokyo)'s status on Wednesday, 19-Aug-2026 22:37:04 JST SuperDicq

     in reply to

     • 翠星石

     @Suiseiseki@freesoftwareextremist.com @davidrevoy@framapiaf.org Yeah I guess that's the real question. Are we supposed to be counting the separate linux-firmware repository that is almost fully proprietary?

   • Embed this notice
     翠星石 (suiseiseki@freesoftwareextremist.com)'s status on Wednesday, 19-Aug-2026 22:37:05 JST 翠星石

     in reply to

     • SuperDicq
     @SuperDicq @davidrevoy I downloaded a copy of the binary of GNU Linux-libre, including almost all of the free drivers, from; https://linux-libre.fsfla.org/pub/linux-libre/rpmfreedom/7.1/RPMS/x86_64/
     
     That is; 145MiB core elf and modules (606MiB extracted (still compressed)) + 2.0 MiB headers (9.1MiB extracted (still compressed)) + 316KiB free peripheral software needed for some drivers, which equals; ~615MiB.
     
     Adding the ~1MiB of proprietary software disguised as arrays of numbers in linux.git to that, that works out to a linux.git size of ~616 MiB (what a coincidence).
     
     But that number doesn't include the proprietary software components of many drivers, as proprietary peripheral software, which is stored in "linux-firmware.git; https://mirrors.edge.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/firmware/linux-firmware-20260622.tar.xz
     
     That is ~1.8104GiB, minus ~316KiB of free peripheral software included, working out to; ~1.8101GiB.
     
     There is quite a bit of duplication, due to a binaries that is slightly different, being a whole separate file on disk - but each file has corresponding source code, which isn't provided.
     
     So that works out to Linux being; ~2.4116GiB in total for the binaries.
     
     That works out to <25% of Linux being free software, while >75% of Linux being proprietary software.