The incentive is simplicity and purity. Not everyone wants a bunch of food
additives or GMOs in everything they eat or drink. Not everyone wants long
lists of unpronouncable chemicals in their cleaning and laundry products. Not
everyone wants the big pharma health care system to dictate how they must
heal. There is room and hunger for alternatives and alternatives do not need
to compete with regular markets and mainstream products. They are their own
breed.
DASH is apparently the devil child of a full-of-big-corporate-names
organization started in 1992 which is happily churning out more computing
locks and chains and controls each year. Younger but sporadic parrallel free
or open hardware organziations are concentrating on definitions, logos, and
leadership challenges, quite focused on education and awareness--and at this
point easy to buy free hardware (perhaps like the Lemote) is almost
non-existent, likely remaining a specialty item appealing to a small
dedicated market. There may never be many sales or much money there. That is
the reality.
Yet much is accomplished when something is brought into existence, made
available for sale. So people can kick the tires and decide what they will.
People are doing a lot of things on their phones, which was unheard of only a
few years ago. Browsing and watching video via phone, no way. It's a
signifcant segment now. People change. In that process, they spend and lots
of other things happen.
These Beagle Boards and Rasberry Pi's have a somewhat rabid following. Look
at all the things people are doing with them. How much computing power does
one need?
Personally I need email and web browsing. Store a few things, a couple of
spreadsheets, I could do it all on a phone if the screen was big enough, but
then there is that darn tracking, so no.
I like a notebook computer like I am using now, but when I gave up a desktop
probably 20 years ago, I haven't looked back. And if it comes to giving up a
notebook computer to have free hardware, I also might not look back.
Things are changing. Products are changing. TV's and so on. Wow.
Apple computer started with a single circuit board if I recall. They threw in
some instructions and a few other parts and thought about calling it a kit.
Who could have known what was happening back then before the future unfolded?
Something beyond planning got them where they are today.
Must there be plans and millions of dollars before free hardware can come
into existence? I say no. It's a big world. There are niche suppliers that no
one has heard of, that no one has thought of, because they aren't the usual
suspects. There are unlikely partners, luck, timing, and fate. And there is
God too.
I know that sounds like foolishness coming from a business major and business
owner perspective--which I have, but I believe it! I've experienced it. I've
had more success bumbling along than when I've planned anything. Not that I
didn't try the planning approach for about 10 long years.
For me, the things I thought out didn't work. Yet people to this day
regularly suggest I over analyze things. Maybe they had a point?
At this moment I don't know what to do, but as I said, I know ONE THING. And
that is that there MUST be new alternatives to vPro and DASH. If for no other
reason than to give free software a home. What kind of free hardware is in
the pipeline now? Seems like, none?
Those new powerful and glamourous computer prisons will not do. Not with free
software. That much I know.
I want to do what I can, no matter how stupid or unrealistic it may seem, to
get something into existence. More opened up firmware code, a new processor
such as was linked to in an earlier message, a cobbled together Beagle Board
system, whatever. Something. There *needs* to be something "there". Some new
hardware or firmware that is free.
In privacy forums I've seen again and again recently the most laughed at
paranoids now feeling they weren't paranoid enough. And those who laughed are
no longer laughing. Things have changed.
I do not have to succeed by society's standards. It's enough for me to put
forth my best effort and make a dent. Then adjust. I do not have to make this
effort my day or my life or my identity. Every bit I do helps. It is one
extra straw that breaks the camels back. Will I be that extra straw? Probably
not, but someone will be and they might not be in their place had I not been
in mine.
I will continue to look for and experiment with something related to free
hardware into which I can place some effort. I hope others will too. Which is
why I've let myself rant like this so others might see what is inside. Crazy,
stupid, naive or whatever, but maybe they'll relate to somthing, maybe
something will shift and they'll decide, to commit. They will tell themselves
or God, I will do something. And within the next year or so it will be done.
