[Arm-netbook] Any progress?

[Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton]

On Wed, Nov 4, 2020 at 7:58 PM Jan Wielkiewicz
<tona_kosmicznego_smiecia at interia.pl> wrote:
>
> Dnia 2020-09-18, o godz. 14:08:29
> Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton <lkcl at lkcl.net> napisał(a):
>
> > On Fri, Sep 18, 2020 at 12:41 AM Jan Wielkiewicz
> > <tona_kosmicznego_smiecia at interia.pl> wrote:
> > >
> > > Hello Luke and others!
> >
> > hi jan
> >
> > > Are there any news about the cards?
> > > We're slowly reaching the next estimated shipping date (30
> > > September), so let us know if there's anything new (I know the
> > > answer for the shipping date is the same as always).
> >
> > i'm pinging mike to find out where he's at.  will let you know.
> >
>
> Sooooo did you find out anything?

he had to move to a bigger factory, and will be carrying on the production.

> By the way, I just saw you're doing a code freeze of the processor. Do
> you have any estimations of when the first products using the simple
> version of the core may be available?

mmm...

> I have some pocket money hungry
> for crowdfunding.

right now they'll need to be big pockets, it's costing NLnet EUR
18,000 to do a few test ASICs (maybe 30, of which maybe 15 might
work).

we also need to be very careful in whom we give them to because we are
required to comply with the OPF's EULA.  if it's non-compliant with
the OpenPOWER Compliance Requirements, we can't sell it.  however...
there is a leeetle wiggle-room inasmuch as IBM and other entities
would have to show "material harm" caused by our test ASIC.

if we sold 100,000 such non-compliant test ASICs such that people
start doing upstream kernel development to cater for the mistakes,
that starts to piss people off who make literally billions of dollars
from the reputation going back 25 years of OpenPOWER ISA being
"unified, stable and reliable".

if however we sold... mmm... 1000 on the SPECIFIC condition that UNDER
NO CIRCUMSTANCES was this to be considered anything other than a test
ASIC, then *MAYBE* it would be ok.

l.