I think there are a lot of people in the free software community with
objections with the claims being made. My hands aren't tied like some so I'll
point out some of the other issues.
1. There have been numerous efforts to free laptops in the past with some
successes. It's not for a lack of trying that ThinkPenguin's not succeed.
Resolving all the issues with modern X86 systems is a near impossible feat.
We've made some effort in this department, but it's more of a token gesture
and the laptops would only be a little bit better. If you refurbish an older
laptop it is easier.
2. License violations and a lack of understanding about what free software
is. If something needs a binary blob it's not free software. I'd never try to
make that claim. At best I'd describe our laptops as being free software
friendly at an OS level. That is everything is going to work with free
software distributions even though there are unfortunately non-free pieces
critical to all modern laptops (BIOS, micro-code, and similar firmware).
3. NVIDIA is not cooperative so the support for the graphics using the
reverse engineered nouveau driver is years behind- it simply isn't possible
to get half-way decent support for the GT840M graphics in this system at this
time. Of the people who have tried I know there were major issues and no
successes as far as I've heard. Evidence on how Todd achieved some level of
success in getting this to work would be a first step, but it still isn't a
good design choice from a free software angle. Even if you succeed it's not
going to work well enough to claim support and so including it at all is
disingenuous. People will buy with certain expectations- expectations that
Todd can't possibly meet.
4. Intel's not cooperative on the coreboot front. Why would you even think
that they'd cooperate now? Google tried to get them to release code for the
Chromebook. They refused. The coreboot developer have been begging for Intel
to cooperate for years. $250,000 USD isn't going to cut it when millions are
already been poured into the effort. Intel does cooperate on the graphics
front though. There simply is no perfect or even good solution to these
problems.
5. "Designed" and “manufacturer” are interesting choice of words. Todd
makes it sound like he actually designed a new board for this. There are few
actual “manufacturers” or companies designing pretty much anything. Major
companies usually utilize one of a handful of companies specialized in the
given arena to design and/or manufacture. Components are usually designed by
one of a few big companies valued at billions of dollars (Intel, Broadcom,
Atheros, etc, not Dell, HP, Lenovo, etc). I'm not questioning his intention
to design a product or support the product. That's fair game. Everybody does
it. However I think his choice of wording gets dangerously close to fraud. It
is misleading territory at a minimum. If he was to become a manufacturer he
would need a lot more than $250,000 USD. He should focus on the overall
product design rather than claiming to have designed or manufactured
something uniquely new- for which simply isn't likely in this context.
6. I'm pretty confident Todd didn't talk to the FSF as stated. Comments made
elsewhere by people in the know implied the project was unknown to the FSF
until after it had been announced.
I have some background knowledge of this laptop. It's designed by a Chinese
company with ties to the Chinese government. It is actually a clone of
Apple's product lineup and a poor machine to build a free software product
off. In China you can get these machines from shady backstreet vendors with
the actual Apple logo. You can actually see just how rampant trademark
infringement is here:
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2011-07/20/fake-apple-stores. These
systems are flat out unsafe. These machines are of extremely poor quality.
I've actually “seen” other similar models get seized on import. It won't
happen every time as the US doesn't have many enforcers at the border
scanning for shipments of infringing or illegal product, but it does happen.
I do think we need a campaign like this, but we should work with one of the
manufacturers whose got someI think there are a lot of people in the free
software community with objections with the claims being made. My hands
aren't tied like some so I'll point out some of the other issues.
1. There have been numerous efforts to free laptops in the past with some
successes. It's not for a lack of trying that ThinkPenguin's not succeed.
Resolving all the issues with modern X86 systems is a near impossible feat.
We've made some effort in this department, but it's more of a token gesture
and the laptops would only be a little bit better. If you refurbish an older
laptop it is easier.
2. License violations and a lack of understanding about what free software
is. If something needs a binary blob it's not free software. I'd never try to
make that claim. At best I'd describe our laptops as being free software
friendly at an OS level. That is everything is going to work with free
software distributions even though there are unfortunately non-free pieces
critical to all modern laptops (BIOS, micro-code, and similar firmware).
3. NVIDIA is not cooperative so the support for the graphics using the
reverse engineered nouveau driver is years behind- it simply isn't possible
to get half-way decent support for the GT840M graphics in this system at this
time. Of the people who have tried I know there were major issues and no
successes as far as I've heard. Evidence on how Todd achieved some level of
success in getting this to work would be a first step, but it still isn't a
good design choice from a free software angle. Even if you succeed it's not
going to work well enough to claim support and so including it at all is
disingenuous. People will buy with certain expectations- expectations that
Todd can't possibly meet.
4. Intel's not cooperative on the coreboot front. Why would you even think
that they'd cooperate now? Google tried to get them to release code for the
Chromebook. They refused. The coreboot developer have been begging for Intel
to cooperate for years. $250,000 USD isn't going to cut it when millions are
already been poured into the effort. Intel does cooperate on the graphics
front though. There simply is no perfect or even good solution to these
problems.
5. "Designed" and “manufacturer” are interesting choice of words. Todd
makes it sound like he actually designed a new board for this. There are few
actual “manufacturers” or companies designing pretty much anything. Major
companies usually utilize one of a handful of companies specialized in the
given arena to design and/or manufacture. Components are usually designed by
one of a few big companies valued at billions of dollars (Intel, Broadcom,
Atheros, etc, not Dell, HP, Lenovo, etc). I'm not questioning his intention
to design a product or support the product. That's fair game. Everybody does
it. However I think his choice of wording gets dangerously close to fraud. It
is misleading territory at a minimum. If he was to become a manufacturer he
would need a lot more than $250,000 USD. He should focus on the overall
product design rather than claiming to have designed or manufactured
something uniquely new- for which simply isn't likely in this context.
6. I'm pretty confident Todd didn't talk to the FSF as stated. Comments made
elsewhere by people in the know implied the project was unknown to the FSF
until after it had been announced.
I have some background knowledge of this laptop. It's designed by a Chinese
company with ties to the Chinese government. It is actually a clone of
Apple's product lineup and a poor machine to build a free software product
off. In China you can get these machines from shady backstreet vendors with
the actual Apple logo. You can actually see just how rampant trademark
infringement is here:
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2011-07/20/fake-apple-stores. These
systems are flat out unsafe. These machines are of extremely poor quality.
I've actually “seen” other similar models get seized on import. It won't
happen every time as the US doesn't have many enforcers at the border
scanning for shipments of infringing or illegal product, but it does happen.
I do think we need a campaign like this, but we should work with one of the
manufacturers whose got something we can actually build a free laptop from.
I've talked with others about non-x86 hardware that might work and dollar
amounts that are similar to what Todds trying to raise.
It'll be a tragedy if Todd's successful because there is real non-x86
hardware that could potentially be totally freed. It will take $250,000+ to
pull off the manufacture of the laptops (or sourcing of them anyway),
developers (to port a distribution), and resources (time and energy to free
it). Unfortunately ThinkPenguin's got other projects on the table right now
and this is something that really needs a strong focus of time, cooperation,
and resources to pull off. Todd has the time, but should have worked with the
FSF on this and done it right.
thing we can actually build a free laptop from. I've talked with others about
non-x86 hardware that might work and dollar amounts that are similar to what
Todds trying to raise.
It'll be a tragedy if Todd's successful because there is real non-x86
hardware that could potentially be totally freed. It will take $250,000+ to
pull off the manufacture of the laptops (or sourcing of them anyway),
developers (to port a distribution), and resources (time and energy to free
it). Unfortunately ThinkPenguin's got other projects on the table right now
and this is something that really needs a strong focus of time, cooperation,
and resources to pull off. Todd has the time, but should have worked with the
FSF on this and done it right.
