On 2018-01-26, taii...@gmx.com <taii...@gmx.com> wrote: > So you know the RPI is not open source as the RPI foundation doesn't > provide firmware sources.
Yes, I'm aware of that. [...] > I would consider purchasing another device, of which legitimately > open source low power ARM devices are a dime a dozen (vs the high > performance realm where POWER's TALOS 2 or rare developer boards are > the only choice) The problem with purchasing less common but more "open" boards is that it tends to be a lot more work to get things running on them. I don't get particularly upset if a cheap, throw-away board like the RP3 uses closed-source firmware -- all the underlying chips are closed-source designs also.[*] As long as that firmware is part of a driver that provides a standardized, open, documented API, I'm happy. If the board/firmware/driver becomes unavailable, the open-source applications and libraries can always be moved to a different board/firmware/driver combination that implements that same standardized API. [*] Sure, you can run low-performance, high-cost "open-source HW" designs by combining open-source VHDL cores and compiling a SOC design into an FPGA, but the FPGAs and all the tools used to compile the VHDL are closed source. -- Grant Edwards grant.b.edwards Yow! My NOSE is NUMB! at gmail.com