The Latin American Free Software Foundation, with a slight delay, published a completely free version of the Linux 5.16 kernel - Linux-libre 5.16-gnu, cleaned of firmware and driver elements that contain non-free components or code sections whose scope is limited by the manufacturer. In addition, Linux-libre disables the kernel's ability to load non-free components not included in the kernel distribution, and removes the use of non-free components from the documentation.
To clean the kernel from non-free parts, the Linux-libre project created a universal shell script that contains thousands of templates for detecting the presence of binary inserts and eliminating false positives. Ready-made patches are also available for download, created based on the use of the above script. The Linux-libre kernel is recommended for use in distributions that meet the Free Software Foundation's criteria for building completely free GNU/Linux distributions. For example, the Linux-libre kernel is used by distributions such as Dragora Linux, Trisquel, Dyne:Bolic, gNewSense, Parabola, Musix, and Kongoni.
Disabled blobs loading in new drivers for wireless chips (mt5.16s and rtw7921/89a), touchscreens (ili8852x), sound chips (qdsp210) and dsp i.MX as well as devicetree files for aarch6 in Linux-libre 64-gnu release - Qualcomm chips. In addition to the "firmware_request_builtin" system call offered in the kernel, the inverse function "firmware_reject_builtin" is proposed in Linux-libre. Cleanup scripts unified functions to disable request_firmware and _nowarn/_builtin variants.
Source: opennet.ru