FSF continuously harms Free Hardware

[Jacob Hrbek]

Free Hardware is hardware following the principles of GPLv3 such as:
1. Creality Ender 3 (https://github.com/Creality3DPrinting/Ender-3) 
Which provides it's hardware and software under GPLv3 for anyone to 
change the hardware on demand with the comfort of FreeCAD to perform 
simulations and optimize the hardware for their computing.
2. PowerProgressCommunity Notebook - 
(https://gitlab.com/power-progress-community/oshw-powerpc-notebook) 
which is a CERN-2.0 (GPLv3 inspired license designed for hardware) 
notebook designed for slimbook chasis using POWER9 CPU which development 
is crowdsourced by the community.

I argue that FSF harms these projects for the following reasons:

1. "Respect Your Freedom" campaign (https://ryf.fsf.org)

Is a certification program by FSF for hardware that "respects user 
freedom and their privacy". Neither of the certified hardware that i can 
see provides ECAD files and models and as such can't be considered to 
respect user freedom and it's impossible to verify that they actually 
respect the privacy and the user is unable to study the hardware and 
change it's design without jumper-wiring (practice of sordering thin 
wires on PCB to change it's function e.g. connect CPU pins to custom PCB).

2. h-node.org

FSF's website providing providing a directory of various hardware that 
are ranked for user-freedom with highest ranking being "A-platinum".

Again neither of the ranked devices provide ECAD files and models for 
chasis under GPLv3-compatible license and many of them are shipped with 
built-in spyware such as Librem 14 v1 
(https://h-node.org/notebooks/view/en/2244/Librem-14-v1/1/1/undef/undef/undef/undef/compatibility/undef/undef/undef) 
that uses CPU that (based on available information, manufacturer refused 
to comment) is vulnerable to spectre and meltdown (vulnerability 
allowing bad actors such as NSA to control your hardware remotely).

3. GPLv3 itself

The GPLv3 even when used in good faith by hardware developers such as 
https://github.com/Creality3DPrinting/Ender-3 is legally problematic as 
it's referring to the copyrighted material as "software".

This provides argument for people to take the ender-3 design, change it 
slightly and license it as proprietary which is currently a common theme 
such as Tevo-Tornado (https://github.com/Homers3D/Tevo-Tornado).

4. Promotion of Purism products

FSF actively endorses and promotes purism products that are said to be 
developed in KiCAD (Free Software EDA). These claims are impossible to 
verify as the manufacturer refuses to provide the ECAD files and models 
claiming that the development cost "was not yet paid".

For example Librem 5 promoted as "security and privacy that represents 
the opportunity to take back control and protect information through 
free and open-source, open-governance and transparency" with FSF's seal 
of approval.

Purism's CEO also stated that the gerber files will be released once 
they pay for the development 
cost[https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/community-wiki/-/wikis/Frequently-Asked-Questions#19-is-the-librem-5-freeopen-hardware]

In good faith i have reasons to believe that these claims are dishonest:
1. Purism is NOT transparent, they refuse to provide any informations to 
their financing and current state of their product funding.
2. The ECAD files and models are not provided for their products
3. They had a crowdsourcing campaign in 2014 where they got 2 500 000 
USD in 60 days for the development of Librem 5, now 7 years later and 
after many batches shipped since they still did not release the promised 
ECAD files and models. I've made some calculations on 
https://git.dotya.ml/kreyren/kreyren/issues/13 (i lack informations to 
make more accurate calculations as manufacturer refuses to provide them) 
and i believe that they already paid for the development multiple times 
**per one batch** assuming that one librem 5 is priced in the $$$$ mark 
+ they are constantly hiring new people and releasing new products so 
they are evidently in favorable economical situation.

5. Promotion of Pine64 products

I already reported this to FSF and they took down any mention of PINE64 
products from the websites, but i want to mention it anyway as i trusted 
the FSF's endorsement and now i am left with functionless bricks on my 
shelf and i want to spread awareness about it to others in similar 
situation.

In short: PINE64 is proprietary developer, pinephone most likely ships 
with built-in spyware to ring-0 due to the used modem and it's wiring on 
PCB 
[https://www.pine64.org/2020/01/24/setting-the-record-straight-pinephone-misconceptions/] 
and they have no plans on releasing the ECAD files or models any time 
soon[https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=15645].

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Observed consequences of FSF's actions:

1. Thanks to FSF's constant endorsements of Purism products they are 
able to orient their marketing around respecting user freedom -> This 
causes significant harm and dismotivation to any kind of Free Hardware 
development
2. FSF's insufficient licensing enables people to take GPLv3 licensed 
content and relicense it as proprietary without violating the law -> 
Causes significant financial loss for developers such as Creality and 
other developers that produce Free hardware.
3. Power Progress Community was sourced entirely without FSF's 
endorsement which was long and painful process and thanks to the 
continuous support of Purism products they are currently not as 
favorable in the market even when their product is actually oriented 
around user-freedom and they put a lot more effort to make it fully 
libre compared to Purism.
4. FSF BoD and members actively mock Free Hardware with proprietary 
hardware mostly without understanding the difference and lack of 
qualification to design hardware which demotivates any kind of Free 
Hardware development.

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Argument about fabrication

The common argument in FSF's community is that "Free Hardware is useless 
as i can't fabricate X amount of layer PCB at home". This argument is 
not valid as thanks to developers such as Creality it's possible to 3D 
print attachments to consumer-grade 3D printer and fabricate those PCBs 
among many many options, but if you lack the experience then fabrication 
through 3rd party is also an option such as PCBWay.com where fabrication 
of e.g. 12 layer PCB is around 200 USD for 20 (depending on many 
factors). Such fabrication is also easily crowdfundable and economical 
to do so if you have a cool design.

---

For those reasons i ask FSF to:
1. Rewrite GPLv3 or create a new license that can be used for Free 
Hardware (could be inspired by CERN-2.0, but the cost of development 
should be integrated to  e.g. mandate transparency until the development 
is paid)
2. Shut down https://ryf.fsf.org as that website is a source of 
continuous harm to free hardware development
3. Take action on 
https://h-node.org/issues/view/en/393/1/bb91d6f657095eec936d5a35be638e10
4. Stop endorsing Purism and hold them accountable to releasing of the 
promised ECAD files and models.
5. Consider endorsing PowerProgressCommunity and other Free Hardware 
developers.
6. Start highlighting freedom issues with hardware e.g. 
https://github.com/JingOS-team/JingOS/issues/5#issuecomment-974302925
7. Adjust internal governance of FSF so that BoD members are educated on 
the subject of user freedom on hardware.

--
Jacob Hrbek

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