[Arm-netbook] crowd-funding landing page is up!

[Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton]

On Wed, Nov 5, 2014 at 8:17 PM, Nico Rikken <nico at nicorikken.eu> wrote:
> Great news!
>
> I'm already notifying my friends about this.

 great.

> In that regard: how 'open' and 'free' is the EOMA68 standard?

 it's open: anyone may implement interoperable variants, however due
to the risk of physical injury if someone gets the implementation
wrong it would be highly irresponsible of me not to go after anyone
that gets the standard wrong.

 is that a reasonable and responsible thing to do, do you think?  to
protect people from potential harm?


> I have
> seen many specs

 there is only one and there will only ever be one place, and it's here:
 http://elinux.org/Embedded_Open_Modular_Architecture/EOMA-68


> and details on the elinux wiki, on the rhombus-tech
> website and on this mailinglist (so open), but I also remember a few
> emails about 'EOMA Compliancy' around the 27th of May this year (how
> free?). I then mentioned the Arduino model and am curious if any
> decisions have been made on this point.

 it's very simple: i am the guardian of the EOMA standards and i
*will* not let the standards either be brought into disrepute nor let
people come to harm through incompetent 3rd party implementation.  it
is completely irrelevant whether they are open hardware teams or
proprietary companies.

this is *mass volume*.  it's intended for kids toys, day-to-day
electronics and for use by grandma, your parents, and the average
teenager.  as such i have a duty of responsibility to protect such
people and there is absolutely nothing that anyone can say which will
convince me *not* to take that responsibility extremely seriously.

 the arduino model expects the end-user to be an educated and
responsible electronics expert, and the volumes of sales are a
fraction of those for which EOMA68 has been designed.  the chances
therefore of someone killing themselves or others around them through
the incompetence of a third party hardware implementer are really
quite remote, but that is NOT the case with the EOMA68 standards.

 so i will not charge a royalty for open hardware implementations but
i *WILL* expect them to go through a proper and full Certification
process.  statistically the risks are simply far too great to permit
anything else.

 now, if this was a project that was of similar scope (comparatively
limited) and reach (comparatively limited) to the Arduino project [an
electronics hobbyist project], then their model would be relevant.

 so - is that now clear?

l.