[Freedombox-discuss] Intel Compute Stick

[Jonas Smedegaard]

Quoting Walter van Holst (2015-01-14 16:07:30)
> On 2015-01-14 15:36, Jonas Smedegaard wrote:
>
>> What I propose *now* is to raise the bar at a _board_ being OSHW 
>> compliant.  That excludes both Raspberry Pi boards (even if future 
>> boards from same vendor is likely to be OSHW compliant) and also 
>> Banana Pi - but includes other Allwinner-based boards even if 
>> documentation of the _chip_ is of substandard quality: Bar is at the 
>> _board_ being OSHW, not the _components_ soldered onto the board.
>>
>> What I propose *now* is to not raise the bar on components, beyond 
>> what have already been done (requiring boot and normal operation 
>> without loading _additional_ proprietary code - e.g. excluding 
>> Raspberry Pi due to its need for binary blob to boot, but including 
>> boards with wifi chips that require binary blobs as the wifi 
>> functionality is optional).
>
> What would you suggest for dealing with people who happen to just port 
> stuff to platforms not meeting this standard? They might still want to 
> contribute patches for that purpose.

Not sure what you mean.  Any and all patches are welcome.  I would not 
suggest to harrass people just because they have different values than 
those we (maybe) decide to impose on this project, but might piss them 
off anyway: I would relax severity of bugreports for issues with 
unsupported hardware.  Despite the severity, some (myself included) 
might still react swiftly on said bugreports, if no other more severe or 
more exciting bug was available to hack on.

Is that what you mean, or something else?


> Take the new Banana Pi R1, which is kind of made for Freedom Box:
>
> http://www.bananapi.com/index.php/component/content/article?layout=edit&id=59
>
> It would not surprise me in the least if A20 enthusiasts were to pick 
> it apart and create a fully free OS image for it.

Me neither.  Different groups set the bar at different places.

Such groups bound by differing principles may then learn different 
things in their explorations, and if their own works are freely (and 
compatibly) licensed then (despite the differing platforms they work on) 
they can cherry-pick great ideas from each other. :-)

As I understand it, OSHW board vendors are frustrated that projects like 
Banana Pi gain market shares by copying their products without "giving 
back" same way as they do.  Arguably, it is an open market and it is up 
to the consumers to decide where the market should grow.  We can play an 
active role there, by deciding to only talk about and care for OSHW 
boards, thereby signalling that we believe that the qualities offered by 
OSHW vendors count to us.

Anyone on this mailing against sending such signal?  Anyone agreeing in 
principle, but for some reason feels that *now* is a bad time to do it?

That includes you, Walter - you are quite welcome to not only raise good 
questions but also answer some ;-)

 - Jonas

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

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