Binary Blobs Continue To Prove Challenging For POWER10 Plus Very Expensive Motherboards

[chocolate]

RYF doesn't promote A or I, it promotes F who gives source for all firmware.

To be more precise, it promotes the solution with the best FOSS approach currently known for a given hardware: the first "tier", which is the one that always raises eyebrows, is hardware that works with open drivers and doesn't require intervention by the OS to be (re)programmed, no matter if it contains proprietary firmware; then, should open firmware be available, that would become the best solution and the RYF certification would only be given to vendors that adopt it.

But of course, the certification is given behind closed doors and a simple end user would only see a sticker that doesn't differentiate between such scenarios (plus, the eventual implementation details such as those bridgman mentioned). So, it's still too vague and admittedly not so useful!

Plus, it doesn't seem completely fair to give no recognition at all to companies that at least officially support e.g. the Linux kernel through open drivers and provide proprietary, redistributable, loadable firmware.
Linux-libre's stance to skip this "tier" would still be legitimate, of course, but the tier itself should be recognized. I would go as far as to say that it should become the baseline.
If the objective is to help consumers take practical steps toward maximizing their individual freedom, is the status quo aiding them in making a thoroughly informed choice? Serious question!

[qarium]

what is the point of saying it (the power 10 system) will only a 1P mainboard at 3500dollars...
a 2P mainboard is not an end in itself ...
the power 10 1P system will be faster than a 2P power9 system...

and what people forget is this: the power9 2P mainboard is already: $3,504.90

so if you see it very rational the power10 system is "cheaper" means less dollars for the same performance. thats because the 1P system is faster than a power9 2P system.

my question is: why do we need a 2P mainboard for power 10 ?... right now we just dont need it...

[qarium]

So the poll is only on twitter ? Odd. Well I'm not going to use twitter just to answer Raptor. In any case they used to hang around here. I'm 0 interested in power10 offerings or anything that's not 100% free of blobs. The performance of power9 is plenty for me. If they could somehow lower prices much the better (no idea how, though, and it's not so important as freedom, but still) I'd concentrate in production and sales channels and staff, even if they didn't engineer anything new. I think they're working on new BMCs, that's OK, but I've been waiting for the webshop of Vikings to come online for ages, and I wonder why should it be so hard to buy.
If Ubuntu ever drops Power9 we'll have another distro, and if those also drop it then we'll have to maintain our own, but at least it'll be always possible because it's all free. It'll be more likely if Raptor manages to sell more units of Power9 systems, than if they now divert into blob-ridden Power10 and divide their base. Never mind were IBM is taking Power10. Invest in production, distribution and support, and try to become bigger and appear a little in the IBM radar to hopefully influence future decisions. Grow while Power9 is available, and keep an eye on any other possible 100% free platform in the future.

there is only 1 way how we get cheaper power9 systems in the future: thats is the point big power9 servers go EOL End of life... and then you can buy used power9 cpus for like 50€ on ebay. and i do not mean the 4 core or 8 core... cpu i mean 16 or 24core cpu for 50€...

but even with this cheat using used CPUs from EOL servers this will never complete with x86_64 because of the mainboard costs...

even if you get 2 of the 16 core or 24 core cpus für 50€ your mainboard still kosts 3500€

i checked ebay and there are already power9 cpus from EOL servers: https://www.ebay.de/sch/i.html?_from...wer+9&_sacat=0

[PublicNuisance]

I hope they choose to not use the closed source firmware and continue to develop Power9 systems. Their systems are very expensive but I consider them worth it simply for being without any closed source blobs. If they use blobs then why would any security/privacy advocate pay such a crazy price for their systems ?

[torsionbar28]

If memory doesn't fail me, another reason to use external firmware is to correct hardware bugs, thus avoiding costly recalls of products already in the market, something likely to occur with the unbelievably complex chips we have nowadays.

True but more than that, it speeds the development of the product. It is time consuming and costly to produce "beta" versions of chips for development and testing purposes. If the areas that receive the most development revisions are loadable via firmware, you can finalize the hardware design much sooner i.e. in a much more cost effective way, while also speeding up the dev/test cycle. Win-win.

Capitalism

Precisely. As I said, a win-win for all involved.