Free Software Foundation approved first laptop for use

The Free Software Foundation (FSF) has approved the use of the first laptop that meets the criteria of the Respect Your Freedom program. “For the first time, we can recommend people to buy and use a laptop in the form in which it is sold,” the FSF said.

The main criterion for the FSF certification program is 100% free software, including control programs for hardware devices, including the BIOS and the firmware of various components. Users should be able to change and control software at all levels at which this is possible. Together with the publication of source codes, the manufacturer is obliged to provide the user with the practical possibility of installing alternative software at all levels.

Not only software, but 100% free and available to the public should be tools for compiling this software, as well as software for installing and maintaining the device. The device should not have any hardware or software backdoors and spyware modules in any form that can provide anyone other than the owner the device identifier, its location or information about the user's activity, except in cases 1) when the user explicitly asks for it, 2 ) when communication protocols require it, or 3) legislation. In the latter case, the owner of the device should be informed with a noticeable message and a link to where to get additional information.

Devices recommended by FSF can support proprietary file formats, such as MP3, but only if free alternatives are supported. DRM formats can only be supported if they are processed in free software.
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All of the above is an incomplete list of criteria that was implemented in the first truly free notebook Gluglug X60 .





The Gluglug X60 is a modified version of the IBM ThinkPad X60 laptop (2006 release), but with a free Coreboot BIOS, a free Trisquel GNU / Linux OS, drivers, and applications. It even integrates an 802.11n network card (Atheros Atheros AR5B195), fully compatible with the standards of free software. The manufacturing company provides documentation and source code for each module.

Trisquel OS is based on Ubuntu using FSF, after removing proprietary programs and firmware options.

A free laptop with a display diagonal of 12.1 "in the minimum configuration has 1 GB of RAM and a hard disk of 60 GB, the maximum of the three configurations is 3 GB of RAM and SSD of 128 GB. The processors use Intel Core Duo, Intel Core Solo and Intel Core 2 Duo. However, the specifications for such a device are not too important and they are not even mentioned in the product description on the official website. The British manufacturer has a laptop that costs 200 pounds (about $ 328).