On 2018-01-26, [email protected] <[email protected]> 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
