Talk: Project Suggestion for an Open Machine (LP09)
You need to spec out exactly what you mean by "open". For some definitions, some machines already sold commercially by for example Lemote and Silicon Mechanics would qualify; for other definitions you'd need to look at something like OpenSPARC. For the most stringent definitions we are pretty much screwed at the moment (think hard drive firmware and other firmwares at the component level).
Also the other bit of open-ness (or free-ness as we'd probably prefer saying), esp. in cases like your link talks about (voting machines), is IMHO having the complete system configuration, minus any authentication tokens, available. For the FSF I'm currently working on that at http://config.fsf.org , a project I'll be talking about on Sunday.
Also FYI for the special case of the current as free as possible desktop or laptop x86 system (coreboot etc), you are correct in that we currently know of no manufactures selling that, but the FSF does maintain a list of people who have asked for that. Look forward to talking to you at the conference; also if you are around on the Thursday before the conference, you should come to the Free Hardware meetup (see main page other events towards the bottom).
-- Danny 13:13, 14 March 2009 (EDT)
Thank you for your comments. Sorry I was not able to be there on Sunday.
My concern about openness is mostly to assure that there is nothing that can be hidden. Just because some of the software has been burned into ROM, doesn't mean that it shouldn't be scrutinized. Seems to me that transparency is necessary for auditability and therefor for trustworthyness. For example, voting machines with closed source code should not be acceptable.
Is the lemote machine available anywhere in the US ?
-- Bob 4 April 2009
For current availability of Lemote hardware, see http://wiki.gnewsense.org/Projects/Lemote ("Availability & commercialization" sections).
If you are a developer with serious expertise in Linux or X11 hacking and want to volunteer to help out the FSF with some issues, the FSF may be able to loan or give you a Lemote Yeeloong - contact sysadmin@gnu.org via email or drop by #fsfsys on freenode to chat about it.
Also, the ThinCan DBE63 will be available soon, and looks promising - http://www.artecgroup.com/thincan/ - this is what I'm personally planning on buying for a stays-at-home machine. I'm going to put together a bulk order (shipping from the very small far away country ThinCan is in is seriously expensive), so feel free to contact me at dclark@pobox.com if you or someone you know can do a pick-up in the Boston area.
-- Danny 09:40, 5 April 2009 (EDT)
See also Freest hardware comparisons.
-- Danny 08:33, 16 April 2009 (EDT)
