I have for some time quite covetously looked at hardware for this: <http://www.openbsd.org/loongson.html> (and at the Lemote Yeeloong netbook in particular). But I could never really afford new kit, so I still haven't bought any loongson hardware. But I'm still thinking about it.
The big draw for me was the reported complete open-source-ness and unencumbered-ness of the whole hardware platform. Now I'm reading at Wikipedia that the Chinese have supposedly caved and coughed up some protection money to one or the other US "Intellectual Property" (haha) shakedown scheme or entity: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loongson#MIPS_patent_issues So does this mean that this platform is now to be regarded as patent-encumbered and no longer completely free (libre)? (That would kind of ruin the big appeal for me.) Thoughts? regards, --ropers
