I've been really happy to see the changes that I think are needed in
relationship to free software going mainstream. Some of it is just being
discussed and acknowledged now and other stuff is actually happening.
Trisquel for instance is switching to an LTS + backports system.
While the overall message hasn't really changed at all the acknowledgement of
our own communities failings and/or at least a change in the landscape is
really exciting. While it doesn't solve the problem its a start to solving
it.
Richard Stallman for instance talked about our failings to get manufacturers
to cooperate. While he isn't saying to abandon those efforts or to abandon
reverse engineering efforts he is acknowledging the problem is too big to
actually solve this way. We need to change how we think abut solving these
problems. Instead of utilizing stock hardware for instance we need to start
focusing on building our own hardware. It may not be cheap or easy. However
it will hopefully lead us to a point where users can at least get free
software friendly systems. And we aren't talking just about the ability to
run a 100% free OS here. We are talking about a completely free system
without microcode, binary blobs, or a non-free BIOS.
