Fully Open POWER System Only Raises 12% Of Goal, Extends Funding Another 30 Days

[Adarion]

I went down the opposite path: eoma68. Even with its shortcomings, at least I can aford one...

I checked it quicky, but I guess with shortcomincs you mean the screaming obvious "allwinner". And in the ARM world you'll likely end up with a stuttering screen when you move the mouse cursor (yes, a bit exaggerated, I know). The GPU situation there still is a pain - especially if you want to go the pure libre approach. 2D/3D accel, energy management, video acceleration, barely anything works with freedom drivers.
It's so sad.

Reminds me of Harald Welte's re-view about the past of OpenMoko. We live in a horribly unfree world, and even the most basic and important things, like comunication, freedom of speech and privacy are undermined by the amount of blob software in modern hardware.

[starshipeleven]

Why isn't anybody talking about this in linux world?

because that plugin isn't seeing exactly widespread usage
"This time, the exploit takes aim at a flaw in a software library alternately known as Game Music Emu and libgme, which is used to emulate music from game consoles. The two audio files are encoded in the SPC music format used in the Super Nintendo Entertainment System console from the 1990s."

[darkbasic]

I would really love to buy one, but simply most peoples can't afford to buy anything higher than 500$ for the mobo. Maybe if it was a just-released power 9 they could have found more peoples interested, but I still doubt they would reach the goal with such prices.

[pal666]

Why isn't anybody talking about this in linux world?

because nobody in linux world is running stuff from random webpages

[pal666]

i understand why they want to produce free system. i don't understand why they want to produce system nobody could afford

[RavFX]

I'm all for a fully free platform but a useful one when you still have the option to run blob of you need to. Like Open hardware that would still allow you to play games. So it would need to be an x86 based platform because that for what bloby stuff are compiled for.

[baracca]

I'd happily invest in it, but...

- no "perk" includes a CPU (!!!), you'll have to add it in the order and pay extra (is it a way to tell us that they'll overprice it?)

- except for the $3,700 motherboard "perk", you always end in buying common hardware from them (disks, GPUs, RAM: is the classical "Apple trick" to sell overpriced hardware?)

- shipping date (Nov'17) did not change, and I don't believe the crowdfunding campaigns who need to use the "optimistic" adjective..

[wizard69]

It`s just too expensive to justify buying for most people. Another 30 days won't change that, unfortunately.

Yep! Seriously for what it is the board ins't expensive per say, there just isn't a market for the board amongst the paranoid.

[wizard69]

I checked it quicky, but I guess with shortcomincs you mean the screaming obvious "allwinner". And in the ARM world you'll likely end up with a stuttering screen when you move the mouse cursor (yes, a bit exaggerated, I know). The GPU situation there still is a pain - especially if you want to go the pure libre approach. 2D/3D accel, energy management, video acceleration, barely anything works with freedom drivers.
It's so sad.

All the ARM world needs is people working on the code base. At least in many cases that is all that is needed. The GPU issue is slightly different as you need dedicated people that understand the world very well to get good GPU drivers.

Reminds me of Harald Welte's re-view about the past of OpenMoko. We live in a horribly unfree world, and even the most basic and important things, like comunication, freedom of speech

Again one big problem with OpenMoko was or is the number of developers on board. That and OpenMoko tried to cut too broad of a path instead of focusing limited resources on key system parts. In any event what really bothers me here is people trying to link free speech rights to this subject. Frankly nobodies free speech has been impeded. You can complain all you want, getting people to listen is another issue.

and privacy are undermined by the amount of blob software in modern hardware.

blobs can be a privacy issue but lets be honest owning any computer is a privacy concern. At this point an unshakable computer has yet to be built!

[wizard69]

i understand why they want to produce free system. i don't understand why they want to produce system nobody could afford

I really doubt that producing a system nobody could afford was the goal. Rather the board price is rather reasonable if you consider the volume combined with the engineering that went into it. Reasonable does not mean affordable. In any event I suspect the really problem here is that there is little true demand for a completely open system, If that was the case somebody would have built an ARM based machine for that market.