I am incredibly sad that TALOS has not gotten the required cash flow, short of a miracle in the next few days.
The coreboot project is pretty much dead in the water without it, the only real choices for further development are either super low power crappy ARM devices or always going to be expensive IBM/TYAN POWER servers, so what do we do?
I am wondering, how come they didn't bark up some government or corporate trees for TALOS funding? AFIAK there are various government agencies interested in secure hardware and assured computing; I have always wondered what the NSA uses for their own computing needs, maybe they paid intel for firmware source code and a system that doesn't need ME to run.
The way things are going: +10 years - Microsoft and Intel have announced the "PrivaSec" initiative, aimed at producing a secure vertically intergrated computing platform where firmware agents prohibit the execution of unapproved programs - protecting your data from unauthorized access.
+20 years - We're sorry, but the GlobeX Trade Agreement and the Secure Communities act of 2035 prohibit the viewing, copying or transmission of this file - Further violations may result in fine, arrest and or the revocation of your work permit and internet operators license.
Thoughts: It seems that so many linux people just don't really care about libre anything, considering that the average linux sysadmin makes over $100K per year the community could have easily funded the project.
These days there are a lot more people with skills, but without the computer enthusiast/hacker culture of the 90's, the kind of hypocritical people who use a macbook, facebook, etc but who chide me for saying that working for the government is not at all immoral.
If I wasn't unemployed I would happily pay $5K for a high performance libre computer, but not everyone is me.
People went nuts for the faux libre purism laptop but talos gets hardly any comparative publicity/hype - why? - "We'll get intel to open up ME one day, we promise!"