# Hyperbola GNU/Linux-libre

Hyperbola GNU/Linux-libre is a Linux distribution for the i686 and x86-64 architectures, including the GNU operating system components and the Linux-libre kernel instead of the generic Linux kernel. Free Software Foundation considers it a completely free operating system, true to their Free System Distribution Guidelines. Hyperbola GNU/Linux-libre uses pacman as the package manager and some patchsets from the Debian development though stopping using patchsets from Debian beyond the version Debian 12.

## History

Hyperbola was born at the 17th annual Fórum Internacional Software Livre (Porto Alegre, Brazil).
On 5 August 2017, support for systemd was dropped in favor of OpenRC as its default init system to support the Init Freedom Campaign begun by Devuan.
On 6 December 2018, Hyperbola was the first Brazilian distribution recognized as a completely free project by GNU, making it part of the FSF list of free distributions.
On 23 September 2019, Hyperbola announced its first release with the implementation of Xenocara as its default display server for the X Window System and LibreSSL as its default system cryptography library.
In December 2019, Hyperbola announced that it would cease to be a Linux distribution, and that it would become a hard fork of OpenBSD with GPL-licensed code. The project cited objections to recent developments in the Linux kernel that they deemed to be an "unstable path", including inclusion of optional support for High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection, the kernel "being written without security in mind", GNU and "core" components with non-optional dependencies, and endorsement of the Rust programming language — due to objections to the Mozilla Foundation trademarks policy and "a centralized code repository that is more prone to cyber attack and generally requires internet access to use".
Since the release of version 0.4 on 1 March 2022, Hyperbola rebased towards its own packages built from scratch and is no longer using any marked snapshot from Arch Linux.

## Social contract

The Hyperbola social contract incorporates aspects of the Parabola GNU/Linux-libre social contract and the "Init Freedom" movement of Devuan. It commits the project to following the principles of the free software movement and free culture (including only supporting community-driven projects), respecting the privacy of users, and respecting the principles of stability (rejecting software that is "broken by design") and a minimal system (including rejecting undue abstraction layers).

## Development
### Packaging guidelines

Hyperbola requires all software to adhere to the GNU Free System Distribution Guidelines, prohibiting packages that are proprietary software, and contain binary blobs or obfuscated code. Notwithstanding that a project is free and open source software, the Hyperbola project excludes packages that violate the social contract (and those that have dependencies on excluded packages), including those that:
* Are not a community-driven project; this rejects all software developed by for-profit corporations, as they are viewed as leveraging corporate influence to coerce adoption of a product, and not truly supporting the free software movement (thus violating the principle of "technical emancipation").
* Have dependencies on Linux functions that prevent it from being ported to BSD
* Have trademark policies that hinder the ability to package modified versions as part of the project.
* Add technical, "social", or "economical" bloat to the Hyperbola project (including excessive dependencies, disrespect of user choice, ignoring backwards compatibility, and replacing existing services), and thus violate the principle of "technical emancipation".
* Have "vulnerable and insecure implementations" and do not commit to the principle of long-term support
* Are "clearly non-free" in their outcome.
Under these guidelines, the Hyperbola project rejects packages such as D-Bus, PulseAudio, and systemd (bloat), package managers for programming languages (capable of downloading non-free dependencies), Vulkan (only useful for modern GPUs thus breaking backwards compatibility), Zstd (corporate project), and Mozilla Firefox (bloat, trademark policy, encourages use of non-free services; the project maintains a fork of Basilisk known as Iceweasel-UXP).

### Codenames

Hyperbola aliases its stable releases using galaxy names as codenames chosen from the list of nearest known galaxies of the Milky Way, in ascending order of distance.

### Release cycle

A stable version of Hyperbola gets released approximately every three years. Point releases will be available every few months. For each Hyperbola release, it will receive two years of extra security updates after its End Of Life (EOL). However, no further point releases will be made. Each Hyperbola release will receive five years of security support in total.

## Installation

Hyperbola GNU/Linux-libre can be installed from scratch using the live images. Prior to the version 0.4, migrating from an existing Arch-based system was supported.