[Arm-netbook] Olimex is making an "open-source" laptop...

[Paul Boddie]

On Sunday 5. February 2017 21.27.14 Paul Boddie wrote:
> 
> I actually thought I'd ask about the software in the comments on their blog
> post:
> 
> https://olimex.wordpress.com/2017/02/01/teres-i-do-it-yourself-open-source-
> hardware-and-software-hackers-friendly-laptop-is-complete/#comment-24787

There's more about the software in the update about the laptop from after 
FOSDEM:

https://olimex.wordpress.com/2017/02/07/fosdem-and-teres-i-update/

"For the moment the only working Linux Kernel which supports all A64 features 
is the Allwinner Android Kernel. This Kernel is full of binary blobs, but the 
only one which could be used for demo. Beside the binary blobs many other 
things are broken, like the power management, different drivers like the LCD 
backlight PWM, wake up from suspend, eDP converter is not set properly and 
works just in 15 bit color mode etc etc. We have the hardware for 50 laptops 
ready (developer edition), but we do not want to ship before we take care for 
the software. At other hand we do not want to ship TERES I with Android or 
RemixOS also which are complete with binary blobs and will never be Open 
Source."

So the story is a bit different from the answer I got before, which was here:

https://olimex.wordpress.com/2017/02/01/teres-i-do-it-yourself-open-source-
hardware-and-software-hackers-friendly-laptop-is-complete/#comment-24795

"You can look at the Linux build scripts at Github and address your software 
related questions to Linux-Sunxi developers who work on Allwinner devices 
Linux support, as we are not experts in this field. To the best of my 
knowledge If you need video with hardware acceleration binary blobs are 
unavoidable for the moment with A64, but otherwise all other hardware features 
have sources with no blobs."

Maybe they realised that people will be very upset if they have some weird, 
GPL-violating vendor distro on their new purchase. Meanwhile, on discussions 
about alternative SoCs, the EOMA68 campaign update describing the different 
SoC choices got a mention. Since Olimex already make Rockchip-based products, 
it surprises me slightly that they aren't pursuing that route as well (or 
instead).

Paul