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On 01/17/2017 02:53 PM, Merlin Büge wrote:
On Tue, 17 Jan 2017 14:24:16 -0600 Timothy Pearson tpearson@raptorengineering.com wrote:
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Regarding the BMC work, we're looking to enable a fully libre BMC on the KGPE-D16. This is a complex process involving significant reverse engineering efforts, writing new kernel drivers for the BMC, etc. With the BMC enabled, proper fan control can be established on the KGPE-D16, in addition to remote console access and of course remote power on / power off / reset functionality.
If this work can be funded, Raptor would chip in a matching amount to lower the costs to the community; essentially we're looking to fund half of the work internally but cannot justify the full cost of the work as the sole sponsor. Every little bit helps, so even if you can only chip in $100 please consider doing so.
Do you think running a crowdfunding campaign again would help getting this funded / collecting donations? I don't know if you have to pay any fees for the various platforms out there, but I bet there are some for which you don't have to pay much.
I'm not thinking of a campaign like the Talos one, I just think it would be useful to keep track on how many people already donated, and how much is still missing to meet the goal. With 'useful' I mean it'd probably boost donations, in contrast to accepting donations quietly. So no big updates etc., just using their infrastructure for collecting donations. But after all, I've no idea about R&D etc. :P
If this is not too straight forward, may I ask of how much of community support you are thinking?
Thank you,
Merlin
Given our past experience with crowdfunding I would rather this be handled by the community itself; this allows the funds to go straight to the work instead of partially being used to pay for the platform and advertising costs.
We would like to see $20k USD from the community; we'll match (and actually slightly exceed) that internally to get the port completed and production qualified. From what I understand this amount is very close to what had been allocated originally for a Talos coreboot build server; the BMC work would allow more KGPE-D16 systems to be used to host pieces of coreboot worldwide.
As an added bonus, the BMC work would be directly applicable to the KGPE-D16's little sister, the KCMA-D8. The same (or slightly modified) BMC firmware should work on both machines.
Thanks!
- -- Timothy Pearson Raptor Engineering +1 (415) 727-8645 (direct line) +1 (512) 690-0200 (switchboard) https://www.raptorengineering.com