I'm looking at their website offerings and I like what I see. http://www.loongson.cn/EN/product.php?id=4&sub=Solutions
Loongson Technology Coporation Limited Tel : +86 10 62600855/ 56/ 57/ 58 ext: 300/305 Fax: +86 10 62600826 Mail to: market...@loongson.cn Add: Loongson Technology Co., Ltd. 10, Kexueyuan Nanlu, Haidian district, Beijing 100190 http://www.openbsd.org/loongson.html On the OpenBSD supported list... Lemote Lynloong all-in-one-PC - "All on-board devices are supported, but the framebuffer is currently limited to the 1360x768x16 video mode set up by the firmware." http://www.lemote.com/en/products/all-in-one/2010/0311/122.html (Company) Jiangsu Lemote Technology Corporation Limited (Address) Menglan Industrial Park, Yushan, Changshu City, Jiangsu Province, China (Phone) 86 400 666 3866 (Fax) 86 512 52308688 (P.C) 215500 (Email) serv...@lemote.com For those of you in Europe... http://www.tekmote.nl/ has these for ~$538.30 CAD (395 Euros), they take p@ypal. Here's an article on the licensing deal... http://www.stockhouse.com/News/USReleasesDetail.aspx?n=8267740 regards, Daniel Villarreal On Fri, Sep 9, 2011 at 4:51 AM, Zeljko Jovanovic < zelj...@tesla.rcub.bg.ac.rs> wrote: > On 09.09.2011. 00:32, ropers wrote: > >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/**Loongson#MIPS_patent_issues<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.) >> > > The platform is free in software sense, i.e. there is no proprietary > firmware or other software. The hardware specification is also available to > general public, in the form of manuals (some in Chinese only, but they are > being translated). > > The Chinese didn't make a clone of a specific MIPS processor (although they > could have done that if they wanted, as there are no patents or laws or > royalty fees associated with that), but made a completely new processor. It > executes the MIPS instruction set, which is (IMO) a very wise choice (for > many reasons). > > They payed a fee to MIPS Technologies only as a sign of good will (and they > didn't want press to write (lie) about some patent nonsense associated with > their product). Officialy, the explanation is that that gives them right to > use the MIPS-compatible labeling. > > I was very happy when I learned about Loongson processor, because this way > the MIPS continues to live. It is a great architecture and it unjustly > disappeared from market (together with other RISCs), because of Intel and > its Itanium (which turned-out to be a failure). > > So, buy a Loongson system, and enjoy it! :) Not only it is a more elegant > architecture, but it gives you a much more performance per Watt than any > x86/x86_64. And if your primary motiff is "freedom", than it is also an > excellent choice.
