One thing this discussion about video (and then audio) cards being designed
on a free-design hardware basis, is how it interacts with other
free-hardware
projects.
We are also seeing Sun working on the OpenSPARC / UltraSPARC T1 (previously
I had no interest in SPARC, but this changes the picture for me), and of
course, there has been the Open Cores project, which has been developing
a lot of different FPGA and ASIC designs for some time now (including at
least
one RISC CPU, which to me, makes Sun's claims of being pioneers for the the
OpenSPARC project ring a little false to me).
How close are we to a 100% free-design multimedia PC platform now?
I do know that CPU, soundcard, and video card doesn't get us there, but
those
are among the big, complex, and expensive pieces that have generally been
regarded as barriers. I haven't searched Open Cores, but based on my casual
visits, it seems likely that there's a lot of the necessary designs out
there --
I wouldn't be surprised if things like UARTS and memory-controllers weren't
already-available as design cores.
I also realize that it's very likely that such a PC would likely have poor
cost/performance ratio compared to proprietary mass-market designs, but
I do believe it would have considerable marketability to serious FLOSS
folks.
I can even think of a few places where a sound objective business case
could be made for preferring such a design.
Of course, falling short of the flexibility of a "PC", there's also the idea
of a "game console" (since Indrema flopped) or perhaps "internet kiosk"
type of application (what the iMac should've been).
As Sony dumps DRM pirate-ware onto people's PCs, and the industry
promotes what RMS likes to call "Treacherous Computing", the idea of a
comoditized, decentrally-produced, free-designed, DRM-free, community-
vetted platform becomes increasingly attractive.
But I'm really not sure how close that goal is.
Cheers,
Terry
--
Terry Hancock ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Anansi Spaceworks http://www.AnansiSpaceworks.com
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