[coreboot] Fund a TALOS Secure Workstation as coreboot build system

[Timothy Pearson]

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On 01/17/2017 11:24 AM, Martin Roth wrote:
> Hi Everyone,
>   I suspect that everyone has already heard that unfortunately, the
> funding for Raptor Engineering's Talos workstation project was not
> successful, so I wanted to make a final post to wrap this up.  Between
> 12 people, we had raised enough to buy the full system and a
> processor, and I'd like to once again thank everyone who committed
> money to helping the project.
> 
> If you haven't read Timothy's final post, I thought it was fairly
> relevant, although I suspect that many of the people in the coreboot
> community already know many of his points.
> https://www.crowdsupply.com/raptor-computing-systems/talos-secure-workstation/updates/the-state-of-owner-controlled-computing-as-talos-winds-down
> 
> Also in the final update, Timothy mentions some of the future projects
> that Raptor is planning to work on, including developing an open BMC
> board for the Asus KGPE-D16 board.  If anyone would like to help fund
> that, or transfer any of the money that they were going to use to
> support the Talos project, I'll match contributions with the money I
> was going to put towards Talos.  He also mentions that he's going to
> keep working on open-power solutions, so I'm definitely looking
> forward to seeing what happens with that.

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.

I strongly encourage the community to assist in this effort; until
OpenPOWER systems come down in price or RISC-V improves in performance
(likely over a decade or more), the KGPE-D16 represents the maximum
performance hardware available to those requiring a fully libre,
blob-free firmware and kernel stack.  Enabling a libre BMC option on
these boards will make it easier for the organizations that rely on this
hardware to manage their systems, helping them spend less time on
routine maintainance and more time on their mission and/or further libre
software development.

Thanks!

- -- 
Timothy Pearson
Raptor Engineering
+1 (415) 727-8645 (direct line)
+1 (512) 690-0200 (switchboard)
https://www.raptorengineering.com
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