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On 12/14/2016 02:07 PM, Zoran Stojsavljevic wrote:
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?
What is wrong with "super low power crappy ARM devices"?
I'll take this particular question in isolation. If this is the only type of computer available that does not require proprietary software to function, then everyone should probably stop using a number of prominent open source projects such as LibreOffice, Chromium, Firefox, Xorg, KDE, Gnome, and the GIMP, among others. Open source hardware is also out due to the processing power required to effectively design anything more complex than a SoC breakout board or microprocessor board. Under the proposed conditions, these software packages and hardware designs effectively require proprietary systems and software for development, and therefore run contrary to normal libre software philosophy.
On our end, we consider this unacceptable, which is why we have been working to provide powerful hardware for people doing real development work. Not everything can be created on a smart phone or tablet, and in point of fact, _most_ things cannot.
I understand that many users or developers of small projects don't need powerful hardware, but please don't make the grave mistake of assuming that everything will continue as-is on the development side if said hardware is not available.
- -- Timothy Pearson Raptor Engineering +1 (415) 727-8645 (direct line) +1 (512) 690-0200 (switchboard) https://www.raptorengineering.com
On 14/12/2016, Timothy Pearson tpearson@raptorengineering.com wrote:
Not everything can be created on a smart phone or tablet, and in point of fact, _most_ things cannot.
I understand that many users or developers of small projects don't need powerful hardware, but please don't make the grave mistake of assuming that everything will continue as-is on the development side if said hardware is not available.
Timothy, thank you for your work to design and crowdfund TALOS. TALOS is the first platform I have seen advertised that has:
- auditable schematics, firmware, and software;
- ECC;
- IOMMU and other features that might support the security features in Qubes or similar;
- at least as much power (RAM, CPU speed, etc) as a typical mid-range laptop.
That is a very compelling combination of properties: auditability is important for avoiding malicious corruption or disclosure of data; ECC is important for avoiding accidental corruption of data (and perhaps for foiling "rowhammer" attacks); IOMMU/virtualisation/etc are important for allowing the user to benefit from "security by isolation"; and the prospect of having enough power to run a few moderately demanding desktop applications simultaneously, on top of VMs, is crucial in order for the user to actually make use of all the aforementioned properties in a practical way.
Wherever the TALOS project goes from here, I do hope we shall see a computer with those properties available on the market soon, at an affordable price. If it comes from Raptor, so much the better.
I wish you the best of luck for the remaining hours of the crowd-funder.
-
Sam Kuper -
Timothy Pearson