You don't get it. It's conflicting with the work others are doing. There is a
certain amount of money that people who care about free software have to
spend on laptops. If those who care about these issues are spending it on
this laptop (which as far as I know Francis isn't even selling which means
it'll end up going torward evil companies who do not care about user freedom
at all!) then that money won't be going toward those working on designing ARM
laptops that can be easily adapted in the future and maintained. We're in the
boat we are in because we're not doing it right. I'd rather hold off on
selling a 100% free machine than see us fail at maintaining our freedom
moving forward.
There are 2-3 groups which are working on designing entire laptops that won't
have integrated non-free wifi components in them for example and can be
adapted easily when better graphics and CPU options are released. There is no
reason to think that Lenovo or Google will come out with a design that
doesn't have integrated wifi- but we could- if only we didn't sabotage those
working on these projects. If those groups can't get the funding they need to
manufacture these laptops because everybody is off buying Lenovo and Google
laptops then the real efforts to produce a more future-proof freer and more
resistant design may fail.
And because Francis is spouting BS about me and ThinkPenguin I want to
clarify some things.
1. I was in communications with coreboot developers all the way back in 2009.
I decided the approach wasn't good and didn't go down that road. I did
reconsider it more recently because of his and others actions. I didn't
ultimately go down that road for a few reasons: I didn't want to step on
Francis's turf (he was playing games with us telling us he'd work with us and
then refusing to release code, etc), I didn't like the idea of selling a
laptop off refurbished parts anyway (high failure rate/support nightmare), I
REALLY DISLIKE Lenovo, HP, Toshiba, Apple, and Sony because these companies
are actively implementing digital restrictions, and lastly I don't like the
idea of giving people product that has the names of companies and a look that
uniquely identifies it of another company which is actively working against
us. It's difficult to disguise a Lenovo branded notebook and using it
publicly is promoting it.
3. Yes- ThinkPenguin computers are not ideal. They're not as freedom friendly
as they could be. This is no secret. We have been at this a lot longer than
Francis. These efforts are a lot more enormous than Francis or ThinkPenguin
to fix. It's not possible to release a modern laptop with the resources we or
Francis has under the current circumstances. You have to either accept that
or buy a refurbished Lenovo. Those are your choices.
3. The more immediate 'right' approach in my opinion is to design a laptop
'from scratch' based off ARM. That would be progress because we would then
have designs for which can be adapted for future generations without having
to rely on companies whom are designing laptops that are difficult or
impossible to fully free. Even with a laptop designed from scratch you can't
free everything if upstream companies are not cooperative. *WE ARE THE ONES*
working with those companies to get sources released. So stop attacking us.
No. We don't have a fully free machine yet- but it'll come when the
conditions are right.
4. The laptops we sell right now are 3rd, 4th, and 5th generation Intels.
These systems aren't perfect although are a bit better than the 6th
generation Skylake. We've avoided adding said models although there are good
reasons to continue selling these models. If we stop the majority of people
wanting to switch away from proprietary software will be unable to do so.
That doesn't help the situation. We'll continue doing everything in our power
to free what we have and get sources released upstream of us for components
where it seems to move the goal post forward.
Anyway- I don't see any good reason to focus on this project now. Bob has had
two different model Chromebooks free'd before and one had 100% free graphics
chipset (we think anyway) in one and the other had a 100% free wifi chip. The
time isn't right to do these projects though. There were/are problems with
both models in terms of hardware availability. Your not in control and trying
to keep up is just counter-productive in the long term when you can be
working on other projects that enable you to do things right at a later date
(designing a laptop 'from scratch', etc).
