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posted by martyb on Thursday November 01 2018, @05:12AM   Printer-friendly
from the open-sesame dept.

System76:

A completely open computer includes every part and component. The computer case, the motherboard, the drives, the memory, the cabling, the buttons, the ports, etc. The strictest definition of an open computer is that every single part of the product has openly licensed design files, schematics, and code. No one is there yet. We all understand that it's not practical to start at the end. So we're chipping away at the proprietary bits. There's a lot of work to do. Those of us working to build open computers are taking different approaches and in doing so we all contribute toward this end. The important thing is that we're all on the same trajectory. There's a massive market out there that's dominated by companies that don't care about making open source hardware. We must make better products than they do if we are to turn that tide.

So, what makes Thelio open hardware? The Thelio design we've worked on for three years is open source. That means anyone can study, modify, distribute, make, and sell the design. You can send the design files to a metal shop to make your own Thelio. You can adapt the design for your needs. Open source hardware is the physical version of open source software. We believe it's important to apply the same passion we have about software freedom to the hardware itself. The open hardware community is young and small compared to open source software. We hope adding Thelio and Thelio Io to the ranks of open hardware will encourage others to join the movement and make their designs free as well. We're very excited to see what people will do with free hardware designs. This is relatively new territory.

FLOSS is discussed often, open source hardware less so.


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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by urza9814 on Thursday November 01 2018, @04:42PM (1 child)

    by urza9814 (3954) on Thursday November 01 2018, @04:42PM (#756506) Journal

    Last but one paragraph: "Eventually, all that will be left are proprietary hardware initialization bits and convincing Intel and AMD to open up there.". Yeah, right. Intel allowing to bypass the ME. Before that happens, we see pigs fly proper, with genetically engineered wings.

    Show me the pigs then, because System76 disables the Intel ME on all products, [system76.com] and they've been doing that for about a year now. I assume there's some other bits beyond the ME that they're referring to in the quoted comments.

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  • (Score: 2) by Rich on Thursday November 01 2018, @05:10PM

    by Rich (945) on Thursday November 01 2018, @05:10PM (#756517) Journal

    Show me the pigs

    Here you go: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uj9G2fXCDIk [youtube.com]

    But this little bit of porcine aviation limited to animation has to do, which is fair enough, because Intel didn't technically "allow" the disabling (as in offering it as an option to OEMs (*)), but S76 do that on the back of an independent hack into the ME firmware.

    (*) The logic of capitalism tells us that they should monetize the feature if it provides an optional added value for the customer. Which could hold true, if that isn't the user of the chip.