My suggestion: pick a laptop or system you like, for whatever reason you like it. And work on it. And produce and upstream code.
If you do that, and you create more code, you are moving us all to a better place. The more knowledge we can put into source code form, the better.
And, if you are one of those people moving us to a better place (and you all are, since you are here), please support the others of us who are also trying to do the right thing, maybe in a different way.
We're all trying to do the right thing. We're all dealing with the compromises that arise from our particular set of decisions. We don't always agree on those choices. I think we should be able to agree that increasing our knowledge and skills as we have in this project is good for all.
Just my take.
ron p.s. Mike, just one thing. If you have never installed coreboot before, your first trip should be on a system known to work, before you start on a system not known to work. It's harder than it looks. p.p.s. I keep telling folks that the coreboot conference (now osfc) is the most fun, and interesting, and creative event I get to go to. I am really looking forward to seeing you all again!