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

[Timothy Pearson]

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On 01/17/2017 06:13 PM, Taiidan at gmx.com wrote:
> Tim, how come you guys didn't go after government and corporate sources
> of funding? I read DARPA is really interested in assured computing these
> days.

Government procurement in the United States operates very differently
than civilian procurement.  Most agencies start by initiating a public
request to accept bids to build a particular type of system, meaning
that first you have to convince them that they need something badly
enough to put out this first public request.  We did attempt this but
without prototype hardware in hand we were not able to proceed further;
i.e. it ended up being a classic "chicken or egg" scenario.

> Maybe there should be a fund for a IBM/TYAN POWER system for the
> coreboot project?, maybe better than being stuck doing development on an
> older platform?

I believe I have mentioned before that Raptor would be willing to
consider this, but the sticker shock would probably mean it would not be
funded.  The cost for legally reverse engineering a Tyan machine and
porting over the entire IBM firmware stack + OpenBMC would probably be
north of $100k USD.

> Does anyone know how long ASUS will keep making new ones?

That is uncertain.  I would expect at *least* until Zen is shipping, and
possibly a bit longer than that.

> Something for people to think about - In 2012 a brand new KGPE-D16
> spec'ed out with cpus and memory would have been just as much as a
> POWER8 system is now (I read on a forum that someone got a S822LC for 5K
> through an IBM corporate rep)

Be careful here; there are now two different S822LC models!  The one
that is nearly free (i.e just needs some additional "elbow grease" to
free up the rest of the way) is codenamed Firestone and still retails
for around $10k USD.  The other one has unknown freedom status; I'd need
to know the codename to check in the main repositories.

> (I would just buy you guys one but I am unemployed despite the bogus "it
> worker shortage")
> 

It is interesting, isn't it?  I think that's just code for "no one wants
the job at the wages we're willing to pay for the hours worked / IP
transfer requirements".

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