Free-licensed hardware
Respecting Your Freedom with Refurbished Devices
© Lead Image © tChode, 123RF.com
One company's quest for open hardware has doubled the Free Software Foundation's list of Respects Your Freedom-certified devices.
Open hardware is still hard to find. Usually, the best you can find is devices that run free software – and even they are scarce. The best resource is the Free Software Foundation's Respects Your Freedom (RYF] certification [1] (Figure 1), which for several years has maintained a small list of devices that run free software. In June 2017, the RYF list more than doubled as the Romanian company Technoethical, formerly known as Tehnoetic [2], received 16 certifications for its products.
Figure 1: Technoethical sells 16 of the 26 devices that the Free Software Foundation (FSF) lists as completely free-licensed.
Technoethical was founded by Tiberiu Turbureanu in 2013. In an interview with Linux Pro Magazine, Tiberiu tells how he discovered free software as he was finishing high school. Soon, he was reading about the GNU/Linux philosophy and becoming involved with organizing free software events, first with Ceata (Ceata elibereaza artele si tehnologiile actuale, a recursive acronym meaning "Ceata liberates art and current technologies") [3]. In 2013, Ceata was incorporated as Fundatia Ceata, which organized free software events in Romania and Moldova.
[...]
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
Valve Announces Pending Release of Steam Machine
Shout it to the heavens: Steam Machine, powered by Linux, is set to arrive in 2026.
-
Happy Birthday, ADMIN Magazine!
ADMIN is celebrating its 15th anniversary with issue #90.
-
Another Linux Malware Discovered
Russian hackers use Hyper-V to hide malware within Linux virtual machines.
-
TUXEDO Computers Announces a New InfinityBook
TUXEDO Computers is at it again with a new InfinityBook that will meet your professional and gaming needs.
-
SUSE Dives into the Agentic AI Pool
SUSE becomes the first open source company to adopt agentic AI with SUSE Enterprise Linux 16.
-
Linux Now Runs Most Windows Games
The latest data shows that nearly 90 percent of Windows games can be played on Linux.
-
Fedora 43 Has Finally Landed
The Fedora Linux developers have announced their latest release, Fedora 43.
-
KDE Unleashes Plasma 6.5
The Plasma 6.5 desktop environment is now available with new features, improvements, and the usual bug fixes.
-
Xubuntu Site Possibly Hacked
It appears that the Xubuntu site was hacked and briefly served up a malicious ZIP file from its download page.
-
LMDE 7 Now Available
Linux Mint Debian Edition, version 7, has been officially released and is based on upstream Debian.

