On Thu, Feb 27, 2014 at 1:26 AM, Eric Nelson <eric.nel...@boundarydevices.com> wrote: > Hi Luke, > > > On 02/26/2014 05:44 PM, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton wrote: >> >> On Wed, Feb 26, 2014 at 11:46 PM, Reg Lnx <regier.kun...@gmail.com> wrote: >>> >>> Thank you Karsten. >>> It answers a lot of questions and it makes sense. I think we can say the >>> very same about the odroid, it has some non free things too. >> >> >> indeed it does. i've been working at every opportunity possible to >> get a software-libre compliant *desirable* processor available for >> general use. four years and counting. it's getting boring. >> > > I jumped in late and haven't read the entire thread, but what > do you consider "desirable"?
desirable in the context of both end-user pricing and modern end-user features. let's take the announcement of an FSF-Endorseable laptop very recently as a good example. if you look closely at the specs, you find it was something like a 5-year-old laptop. how can a 5 year old laptop be desirable to the average person on the street? >>> So it looks like we still don't have a 100% open source computer. >> >> > > Ahem.... You can run our boards with 100% open source, and I think > our quad-core GHz i.MX6 are they available for $USD 50 because you're selling them in volumes of 100k+ units? rockchips 28nm GPL-violating quad-core RK3188 is $USD 12. compared to $36 for a *more power-hungry* 40nm quad-core iMX6. (btw, if you're interested, i can put you in touch with a company that can get you China-based pricing for the iMX6. for various very good reasons Freescale operate *different* pricing for S.E. Asia and the EU/USA). which would you think would be more desirable? $99 products with worse battery life, or $50 products with better battery life? unfortunately, the iMX6 is considered "old" already. the pricing doesn't help, either. > There's one key piece that's normally closed-source (the GPU), but > there's an open-source alternative here: > https://github.com/laanwj/etna_viv yes. i've been advocating the use of Vivante to the Fabless Semiconductor companies i'm in contact with, exactly for the reason that etnaviv exists. unfortunately the iMX6 still has proprietary VPU firmware. if that were to be reverse-engineered then it would mean that the iMX6 would be the *very* first FSF-Endorseable ARM SoC... that was still just about classifiable as "desirable". but only just. > There are also some open-source bits with licenses other than > GPL/LGPL provided by Freescale (notably, some of the VPU code), > but the restrictions are pretty reasonable: Don't use on non-Freescale > processors... unfortunately the fact that it is *possible* to install proprietary firmware means that it's non-FSF-Endorseable. to be FSF-Endorseable... it's complicated, but in this case it would be necessary to power down the VPU entirely at a system-board-level and for it to *never* be possible to power the VPU back up. ever. now, if it was a separate chip (or peripheral), where the firmware was uploaded as a one-off to get the hardware up-and-running: that's ok. if the firmware was hard-coded into a library (rather than being a separate blob uploaded into the SoC's memory) then it would qualify under the GPL's "System Library" exemptions. but the iMX6 VPU firmware arrangement is neither of these things, so unfortunately it doesn't qualify. > Again, ahem... We try very hard to give back when we can. ... because as a mid-level-volume company that's also a software service and solutions provider you fully recognise the value that's being provided by the software libre community. which is great! i was NOT referring to boundarydevices - or companies like boundarydevices. i was referring to large mass-volume companies such as AMLogic, Mediatek, and LG, and the likes, all of whom *knowingly* commit endemic GPL violations on a massive scale. LG actually consider it a FAILURE ON THEIR PART IF YOU EVEN NOTICE THAT THERE IS GPL SOURCE CODE USED IN THEIR PRODUCTS. rather than work with the software libre community, they paid a team of lawyers a considerable amount of money on how to devise a sophisticated tivoisation and DRM scam. does boundarydevices knowingly and deliberately commit GPL violations?? of course they don't. because you are in a different market where you provide solutions, not appliances. > Essentially everything we provide is open-source, awesome! that's because you Get It. >> but, working from the ground up is the only way that this situation >> is going to change. The Plan: >> >> 1) make some successful desirable mass-volume hardware that respects >> software freedom >> 2) sell lots of it >> 3) put the money made back into funding software libre >> 4) put the rest back into solving a non-free issue whilst not >> compromising the profitability needed for the next iteration round the >> loop >> 5) repeat from 1. >> > > I don't know what you consider "lots", and we don't put **all** of > our money back into free software, but we do spend time and money > on various open-source projects, so I'll take some exception to the > brush you've used to paint us "greedy manufacturers"... you work with the software libre community. your business model is completely different. > We'd love to have an "easy button" for folks wanting to use our > boards with Debian. and, as the iMX6 is one of the few ARM SoCs with long-term committment from its manufacturer, Freescale, unlike many of the china-based SoCs with their nova-burst lifecycles this would actually make some sort of sense. especially if you're planning to sell the sabre-lite for a few more years yet. btw, it's got 2gb RAM, hasn't it? the primary focus eric should be on Debian Installer. the mistake that linaro keep making is to deliver "images, images, images". no end-user installing a system wants the crap choices made by some random tit of an engineer. vastly-extended download times, reconfiguring an ext4 filesystem live, having to buy *exactly* the right sd/mmc card size (or waste huge sections of it), forcibly having to deinstall unwanted packages?? these are *not* fun things that people want to waste their time on. by contrast Debian Installer can be a few mbytes worth of download, is small enough to fit into memory over a PXE boot, leaving the main boot media free and available for a fresh install. eric: the iMX6 is one of the few SoCs with EFI boot from SATA, isn't it? l. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-arm-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". 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