Slashdot has reported:

The Free Software Foundation is criticizing Raspberry Pi firmware that can block memory upgrades, calling the restriction a form of digital rights management that limits owners’ control of their computers. The checks have been part of device firmware since around 2024, but have only recently drawn wider attention, the organization said.

The foundation’s deputy director, Sean O’Brien, said it has never supported Raspberry Pi because the devices depend on nonfree software during boot, leaving an important part of the computer outside the user’s control. It now says the firmware’s memory checks impose “an even more intrusive restriction on user freedom.”

A user can desolder a board’s original RAM and install electrically compatible memory, but the nonfree firmware may refuse to recognize it or prevent the computer from booting. The checks can also reject replacement memory with the same capacity as the original.

The foundation said the restriction goes beyond Raspberry Pi’s longstanding reliance on nonfree firmware. It characterizes the memory checks as DRM because they use software to prevent owners from making a change that the hardware can otherwise support. Soldered memory is difficult for most people to replace because of the hardware’s physical design, it said, while Raspberry Pi users have demonstrated that the boards themselves can be modified successfully.

Raspberry Pi has defended the DRM as a way to identify computers whose hardware has been altered. The source material says there have been reports of unscrupulous sellers replacing memory on lower-capacity boards and reselling them as more expensive models, sometimes with unreliable or defective components.

The foundation argues that preventing fraud and maintaining quality do not require taking control away from users. It proposed recording a board’s original factory configuration in a cryptographically verifiable form, using free software to warn users when installed RAM differs from that configuration, and providing tools for buyers to check what hardware originally shipped with a board. It said none of those options would require a software-enforced restriction on what owners can do.

The foundation also pointed to Raspberry Pi’s stated commitment to longevity as a guiding principle, saying restrictions on hardware upgrades are troubling in that context. It said people who own the computers should be free to modify, repair and upgrade them without nonfree software limiting their potential. In its view, control of the computer should rest with the user rather than the manufacturer.

Hackaday recently argued that the restriction was “no big deal” because it can be bypassed. The bootloader is stored in the board’s SPI flash chip, which can be reflashed through the built-in mask ROM over USB using rpiboot. Users are also not currently prevented from installing older bootloader versions, according to the account cited by Slashdot.

Hackaday’s advice was not to lament the restrictions because RAM upgrades are only slightly harder to perform now. It said very few hackers had ever done the upgrades, and that the main audience for them turned out to be dodgy online hardware resellers. It also urged readers to consider that buyers may no longer be fooled by a shady seller on Amazon, especially as incentives to modify boards and reuse harvested RAM chips are at their highest.