So not everybody has to read a long post I'll do this in British 'top
line' format, the crux first. One question here at the top for
everybody. Do you want something more than the Lemote Yeelong as a
[now barely] usable free software friendly computer platform? I
thought so, well as you know libre doesn't mean gratis.
Here's the detail:
The Kickstarter's product is Verilog HDL _source_ licensed under
LGPLv3, so it's free and not limited to FPGAs; verilog can be used
with many VLSI tools. The 'Respects Your Freedom hardware
certification requirements' [1] say:
However, there is an exception for secondary embedded
processors. The exception applies to software delivered inside
auxiliary and low-level processors and FPGAs, within which software
installation is not intended after the user obtains the
product. This can include, for instance, microcode inside a
processor, firmware built into an I/O device, or the gate pattern of
an FPGA. The software in such secondary processors does not count as
product software.
So it's even possible to have a proprietary FPGA in the board design
and the computer still be RYF compatible.
In RMS's GNU 30th speech he said words to the effect 'support the
free hardware community, theirs might be the only hardware we can
trust in the future.' This OTOH is an open source hardware project.
My view is like the open source software community they're useful for
the freely licensed products they make. After all we're using a
derivative of Linus Torvald's kernel and you know what he's like.
The kickstarter is potentially an important libre component of a
modern computer the free hardware community can use.
AIUI the open source hardware definition is about zero licensing cost
not liberty. So the fools would just go and buy a 'cheap'
proprietary license on an extant i128 VGA BIOS without a bye or leave.
I've backed this not because ultimately I want to buy a PCIe card
with this GPU to stick in my x86 PC. I've backed it for the
'creation of available free platforms for Linux (sic)' this undated
free hardware page [1] sees as 'unstoppable whatever happens.' That
the free software community has to port and write software for it
because of the open source hardware designers' lack of ethics seems a
minor inconvenience when compared with the fact that the free
hardware community currently has no choice but to use proprietary EDA
tools against their ethical principles in pursuit of this goal. If
you read the page [1] you will see there is a team working on a libre
FPGA to rescue them, and therefore us, from this.
It might seem a lot of money in terms of having it to spend in your
personal bank account, but, the maximum $1M stretch target for a
modern GPU definition works out as approximately 13 elapsed months at
the standard UK 'time actually working' ratio for just 3 (sic three)
ordinary software contract staff in the UK. The company I worked for
at the time was spending more per year on some modest (teens of
people) proprietary software teams and their overheads when RMS
changed the world and published the four freedoms just over thirty
years ago. In terms of chip design today $1M is utterly peanuts.
Even if this company had free software principles I cannot see how
they would fit the VGA BIOS and 3D GPU driver development into such a
_tiny_ budget given the task at hand. To me it seems natural that
the drivers for free hardware be written by the free software
community. The software is, after all, our half of the free computer
equation.
Bear with me for a bit. Last year's 'free and open source hardware
like the Arduino' Kickstarter the Parallella which some of us backed
IMO turned out a complete success in free hardware terms. We have a
novel parallel computer architecture fully documented, SDK and
libraries including a libre OpenCL implementation, complete HDL to
interface the parallel CPU cores to a dual core 1GHz ARM, complete
circuit board design etc all libre.
Unhappily those of you who would rather we not develop free hardware
using the only tools there are, are going to be upset because part of
what makes it IMO a complete free hardware success is it's FPGA which
is on the CPU chip is soft loadable. Thus it will never be RYF
because of the proprietary FPGA tool chain. But non-free FPGA tool
chains are according to all the sources I've found _all_ there is.
At some point in time there has to be a free hardware GNU/Linux
capable platform which is coupled to an FPGA so that free peripheral
IP and the corresponding free software including drivers can be
developed. The Parallella is this within the limits of what can be
done with free software and free hardware at present.
AIUI even Coreboot contains non-free microcode or your x86 CPU won't
work, and AFAICT most of us are still using the proprietary BIOS in
our computers from lack of a coreboot image for it. We regard that
as an acceptable compromise because there is no RYF computer at
present. I've chosen a different compromise, a free hardware
computer where the compromise is the non-free FPGA toolchain used by
the free hardware community. The whole of the source is libre. Well
it will be when there's a fully free ARM distro until then it needs
Debian porting (because Adapteva ship it with Ubuntu) and before that
testing with a deblobbed kernel.
The Parallella Kickstarter was again $1M to turn it into a reality,
some of us backed it. Its slipped schedule but is we're told is
shipping this month. They're taking pre-orders from non-backers for
it now, $99.
The above wasn't entirely a disgression, at the 600K stretch goal the
open source hardware GPU Kickstarter will build project files for the
Xilinx ZYNQ series. That's the ARM/FPGA combo in the Parallella.
I've not checked up to know for sure the IP will fit in the
Parallella with necessary other bits of libre IP. Adapteva intend to
build different models with different gate count FPGAs if there is
demand. So the possibility of an 1GB dual core ARM SoC with a
performance libre GPU coupled with a cutting edge 16 core parallel
processor is there. Parallel computer technologies are a potential
future escape from current CPU design limitations when we hit the
limits of silicon physics. So that too is an important libre
hardware and software bet for the future.
I fully accept the veracity of the RYF definition, hardware that
fully respects our freedoms has those properties. In essence all I'm
suggesting wrt to the Parallella is that we listen to our allies in
the free hardware community when they talk about the realities of
hardware design. Remembering in addition that RMS has said free
software is a long haul cause which implies we should keep our eyes
on the goal at the horizon when we're weighing up a choice between
two compromises.
The above is only the result of me researching and writing up my
inferences for something a little more than a day. So by the way of
these things it needs checking. The opinions here on the Parallella
are strictly my own.
So please Chris and others back this. Even without the Parallella
this is an investment against the day we are no longer beholden to
proprietary hardware companies.
[1] http://opencollector.org/Whyfree/freedesign.html
