[Freedombox-discuss] Freedom box and sharism.cc

[Jonas Smedegaard]

On 11-12-19 at 02:51pm, Thomas Goirand wrote:

> On 12/19/2011 01:52 PM, Jon Phillips wrote:
> > Has [FreedomBox] found a business model yet?
> 
> Jonas and Bdale can talk about that better than I would.
> 

I have no business model, just passion: I participate in Debian, a 
purely volunteer driven project.  On this mailinglist I participate in 
the software stack for the FreedomBox.

Perhaps the better place to ask about business model is at the 
FreedomBox Foundation, which is a separate entity than Debian.  Or 
perhaps those involved in the Foundation will answer here - Bdale 
(Debian developer and leader of the Foundation "technical comitee") and 
James Vasile (Foundation CEO) are active both here and on other 
Foundation specific lists.

Yes, I recognize that this separation is confusing for newcomers.  
Perhaps you are familiar with OLPC and its softare stack "Sugar" - the 
split here is similar, but confusingly both parts identify with same 
name. :-/


> Jonas and Bdale are 2 debian developers working hard on the Freedom 
> box project. They are currently working with a company that decided to 
> provide them some plug-computer hardware for free,

I have never heard of plug computers being given out for free.

I bought myself 2 SheevaPlugs in the spring of 2009 - more than a year 
before the FreedomBox project was started. Since then I've hit the 
breaks on mying more gadgets due to limited personal finances.

If someone has hardware available to hand out, I believe I could be more 
productive with a DreamPlug - since apparently noone but me show any 
interest in using SheevaPlug for FreedomBox, and its different 
bootstrapping slows down my work on the more flexible "boxer" build 
tool.


> and on which they could last work on summer.

Not true.  Work is ongoing, just not directly visible when looking 
narrowly at FreedomBox resources: The software stack for FreedomBox is 
Debian, and ideally this list and its related resources (e.g. git) 
should only be things unique to FreedomBox.



> It is my understanding that the current hardware for the freedombox 
> project itself isn't free/open (Jonas and Bdale, please correct me if 
> I'm wrong), while the Milkymist One even has an open source mips CPU.
> 
> I have no doubts that you would be capable of producing an awesome 
> open source plug computer, or anything else you would envision for the 
> freedombox project.

Plug hardware was chosen because it runs Debian and exist as a consumer 
product - in smaller quantities for developers today, and likely in 
larger quantities for end-users when FreedomBox matures.

Would certainly be super cool to have competing hardware available!

If what you guys can offer is custom-produced hardware for a wholesale 
customer, then perhaps the Foundation would be interested - but I doubt 
it: more likely their stand is that hardware must exist on its own, not 
only as an investment by the Foundation.


If you are interested in producing hardware ideal for prjects like 
FreedomBox, I strongly recommend that you - in addition to exploring 
this project more in detail - get in touch with http://emdebian.org/ 
which is Debian folks devoted to and experienced with Debian on small 
devices.


Hope that helps,

 - Jonas

-- 
 * Jonas Smedegaard - idealist & Internet-arkitekt
 * Tlf.: +45 40843136  Website: http://dr.jones.dk/

 [x] quote me freely  [ ] ask before reusing  [ ] keep private
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