[Arm-netbook] Shout out to EOMA68 in new article

[Pen-Yuan Hsing]

Dear list,

Wy back near the end of 2017 I was invited to write a review of the 
book "The Hardware Hacker" (https://nostarch.com/hardwarehacker) by 
Bunnie Huang, the person behind the Novena project:


https://www.crowdsupply.com/sutajio-kosagi/novena

My peer-reviewed review article was finally published here yesterday 
under CC BY 4.0:


https://doi.org/10.5334/joh.11

I mention this because I managed to put in a shout out to the "the 
EOMA68 line of computing devices" with a link to its Crowd Supply page.


First of all, please feel free to refer to this article via the DOI link 
above, and share it widely in whatever forum you see fit.


Secondly, I'd appreciate any/all critiques of my article that you're 
happy to provide. I suspect the most direct way is to use the article's 
built-in Disqus function which you can see in the "Discussion" tab on 
the article's page (again, via the link above).


I am by no means a hardware expert nor a seasoned veteran of the free 
software movement. So your constructive criticisms would be appreciated.


I just hope that this will, in a small way, help promote the amazing 
work Luke has been doing. Thanks!


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Re: [Arm-netbook] pyra computer

[Pen-Yuan Hsing]

On 16/02/18 11:13, Erik Auerswald wrote:

Hi,

I did not want to enter this flame war, but I want to point out an
obvious misunderstanding of the involved parties:

On Thu, Feb 15, 2018 at 02:51:06PM +, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton wrote:

[...]
  now, it so happens in the case of HDMI that you can simply put an
HDMI connector on the product what you CANNOT AND MUST NOT DO is
put the *WORD* "HDMI" anywhere on your product, because that has
SPECIFIC implications that the seller of that product HAS GONE THROUGH
THE CERTIFICATION PROCESS.


Without a "product" and a "seller" there can be no infringement. A hobby
project can exist and be publicly discussed and documented without being
either a product or sold.

Over and out,
Erik


I didn't want to enter this either. But I'd like to clarify that if it's 
copyright we're talking about, then having a "product" or "seller" 
doesn't matter. It's simply about the making of copies, and unlicensed 
copies are forbidden by default regardless of how the copies are used. I 
don't like it and disagree with it's whole premise (see onpon4's earlier 
comment) but that's how it works.


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Re: [Arm-netbook] EOMA68 / Libre RISC-V team financing

[Pen-Yuan Hsing]

On 30/12/17 20:45, ronwirr...@safe-mail.net wrote:

Displaying a form of payment is not good enough. Lkcl should
make a website. It should show which amount of money he
wants monthly and how much people have paid a given
month.
It should list several forms of payments. Including paypal. I
am not going to register about a new service in order to get
to pay.
As long as lkcl gets the monthly amount he is asking for,
I will pay for the next month. One month lkcl does not get
the amount he asks for, I stop my payments.
Lkcl not getting the amount he is asking for, tell me
people are not interested in paying more in order to get their
items. Then I say lkcl should stop production of the
pc card, no refunds and negotiate a solution regarding
those who wanted a laptop.



  got one https://liberapay.com/~27466/widgets/


Sorry if this has been discussed before, but Luke have you investigated 
[snowdrift.coop](https://snowdrift.coop/) and [Open 
Collective](https://opencollective.com/)?


I know snowdrift.coop hasn't fully launched yet, but can this project be 
one of its "launch partners"?


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Re: [Arm-netbook] EOMA68 / Libre RISC-V team financing

[Pen-Yuan Hsing]

Interesting, I haven't heard of GNU Taler. But please excuse my 
ignorance: Reading the official website doesn't help me understand 
exactly what it is. Can you explain (or link to a good explanation)?


On 28/12/17 17:11, Julie Marchant wrote:

gnu taler seems sufficient to me. We don't need crypto currency, a way to 
anonymously and securely transfer actual money should do just fine.
--
Julie Marchant
https://onpon4.github.io

On Dec 28, 2017 11:32 AM, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton  wrote:

On Thu, Dec 28, 2017 at 3:07 PM, Sam Huntress  wrote:


Currently Bitcoin is an insane gold-rush bubble that is frivolous and
wasteful but it has the potential to balance out into the secure,
distributed, democratized digital currency it was designed to be and I
think that is something worth spending energy on.


indeed...  would it not be worthwhile, do you think, to leverage
*this* opportunity... such that the funds were available to *create*
an eco-responsible coin that is *properly* libre, properly
peer-to-peer distributed, and so on?

look at what i put out only a few weeks ago, we analysed at least two
alt-coins that, whilst the people behind it had their hearts in the
right places they *still* did not fundamentally get it.

if we don't do this "properly" then those alt-coins will be all that
is available... oh and bitcoin.  is that something we really really
want?

gone midnight here (julie) i'll write a more complete reply tomorrow.

l.


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Re: [Arm-netbook] EOMA68 / Libre RISC-V team financing

[Pen-Yuan Hsing]

This sounds like a great opportunity. But I share Mike's questions. Can 
you clarify what (1) and (2) mean and what's needed for us to pitch in?


On 27/12/17 10:25, mike.v...@gmail.com wrote:

2017-12-27 10:59 GMT+01:00 Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton :
Top note. You're writing like a TellSell ad. I get that you're exited
and in need. But it's not boosting confidence.

Also the worlds financial experts have a, perhaps healthy, fear of
crypto currency's

Although I think that is also based on lack of insight. It remains
currency trading, which in itself is risky business.



i have two separate and distinct questions:

(1) is there anyone who does NOT wish to put their own money into
buying bitclub shares who would like ME to sign them up, and, over the
next few weeks and months, PAY their membership AND pay for their
equipment.


You sign me/us up, I/We pay?



(2) is there anyone who CAN put their own money into bitclub who would
be interested to know more.  if yes, and you already know about
bitcoin mining and about MLM etc. the link is here
http://bitclub.network/lkcl


I/We sign up and pay?



the goal basically is to leverage this to become financially
independently wealthy, and use it to fund libre hardware and software.
there's about maybe 3 to 5 years in which bitcoin - specifically GROUP
mining NOT individual mining - is a viable way to do that.


We pay a amount and you enhance that amount via bitcoin group mining, right?

If so, Mine/Our input is one-time or reoccurring?

 From what amount can I/We pitch in?

How well guarded is the group? The biggest risk in these "markets" is
that if they get hacked the coins vanish at near lightning speed.

Kr, Mike


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[Arm-netbook] MNT Reform DIY portable computer

[Pen-Yuan Hsing]

Hi all,

Just FYI, I just stumbled upon the MNT Reform project:

http://mntmn.com/reform/

Is there anything here that's of use to the project? What do folks think 
of it? Constructive criticisms?


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Re: [Arm-netbook] OT: Librem 5?

[Pen-Yuan Hsing]

(before I respond below, just full disclosure again: I didn't follow the 
Purism campaigns super closely so please feel free to correct me if I'm 
wrong on the *facts*!)


On 26/09/17 13:48, Bill Kontos wrote:

On Tue, Sep 26, 2017 at 8:41 AM, Lauri Kasanen  wrote:

You make a decent argument, however all the issues were pointed out to
them during the laptop campaigns again and again, and they did not
learn; they repeated them with this phone. That's willfull ignorance if
not outright malevolence.

1. They advertised the laptop as 100% free, when it could not be so due
to ME.
2. They advertised it would ship with coreboot, when it did not until
several months after release.

Deceptive advertising, and they repeated the same thing with the phone.
Even if we want somebody to succeed in a less-free device, do we want
them to be the people who willfully deceive in order to do so?


I certainly agree that people shouldn't "willfully deceive"! That said, 
there is a high bar for demonstrating **wilful** lying. This high bar is 
certainly true in many legal jurisdictions, and I think it's a good idea 
in general.


As far as I remember (and atm I really don't have time to check 
archive.org), when the Librem laptop campaigns first began, they already 
had that table in their campaign description saying the BIOS and Intel 
ME have not yet been freed, but everything else is. At the time it 
looked fairly clear to me that Purism wanted to make a 100%-libre laptop 
but there were still a few bits missing. It also seemed clear to me that 
they are working on freeing those bits.


One could certainly argue that Purism didn't *emphasise* the non-free 
bits, but to me there was no clear *wilful* lying because all the facts 
were on the campaign page.


Another important point is that this was a crowdfunding campaign, not a 
traditional sales page. And like other crowdfunding campaigns, Purism 
laid out what they wanted to achieve. And just like other crowdfunding 
campaigns, there is by default no 100% guarantee that everything the 
project sets out to do will be 100% achieved 100% on time. Maybe I'm 
strange for this, but when I pledge money for a crowdfunding campaign I 
know I am supporting the project to move towards a goal while conscious 
that sometimes not all the goals are 100% achieved.


And let's look at what Purism *has* achieved: They are now much closer 
to freeing the Intel ME on their laptops, certainly much closer than 
before their campaign started. This benefits everyone not just Purism, 
and I don't think this achievement is possible if no one supported their 
initial crowdfunding.


I agree Purism is likely far from perfect, but during the same period of 
time has anyone else achieved what Purism did? (honest question)


I'm a backer of the EOMA68 project and am super excited about what's 
being done here, but it's a different set of achievements from what 
Purism is working on.


But whatever Purism's real intentions, my main point isn't to defend them.


Honestly I don't really care. I look at the end result. Their
advertisement pisses me off to no end, but at least they got something
done. As it stands right now they are the no.2 most free and secure
laptop manufacturer out there. If our community is so twisted that we
need someone to decieve us to get people reverse engineering the intel
ME just to "show them" or whatever happened, then I say well deserved.
So unless some engineer comes out libv-style with proof that "I spent
x amount of my time for purism to take advantage of it and I got
nothing in return" my purchase decision will not change. So far all
that they lied about was the timeframe at which they would ship the
features, but not the features themselves. So no biggie for me. Also
in regards to RYF certification I remember rms saying he wished amd
would burn their firmware blobs for their gpus to rom so they could
grand RYF to their cards. Sounds a bit of a foolish way to grand RYF,
but if purism follows the same idea( which according to the campaign
page they intend to) they might actually get it.


I partly agree with Bill here.

To be clear: My point isn't to *specifically* defend Purism, though they 
have demonstrable achievements for software freedom.


My main point is that I feel the free software community *in general* is 
very hostile towards small steps that don't take us to 100% software 
freedom. If a laptop that's, say, 95%-libre is made by someone (doesn't 
have to be Purism), it is real progress and objectively better than a 
laptop that's 50% or even 0% libre.


I think our response to projects that make 95%-ish-libre (or even 75%) 
products shouldn't be "you are a terrible person!", it should be "great 
job for taking us a bit closer to software freedom, how do we work 
together to make it even better?"


This is what I think, and if you disagree on this main point (not 
specific to Purism) I'd honestly love to hear your opinion!

Re: [Arm-netbook] OT: Librem 5?

[Pen-Yuan Hsing]

On 25/09/17 21:35, Bill Kontos wrote:

On Mon, Sep 25, 2017 at 9:49 PM, Isaac David  wrote:


as a cellphone non-user and die-hard libre software acolyte, i don't
see the Purism people as enemies. they only need to reword their
marketing to be a bit less disingenuous. they speak the language of
the purists; this is how we know they _are_ aware that their products
will fall short of something like a RYF cert.


First of all congratulations for not using a cellphone. I literally
can't do that. People expect to find me on the phone. I have to follow
facebook teams for announcements and stuff. And yes their marketing
pisses me off a lot. I wish it was more honest but at the same time
they are not spewing lies right and left. They do have a timeline on
what they want to do, they just don't know how fast they will get
there. As it stands right now, purism laptops are the only laptops
that now come with coreboot preinstalled, automatically making them
the second most free platform after the libreboot x200s. Think about
that.


This has been such a fascinating discussion I can't help but chip in. :)

> congratulations for not using a cellphone

I envy you for being able to live without a cell phone (which are sadly 
all not-100%-libre atm).


A common refrain of free software advocates is that if a product is 
non-free, just don't use it. This way you don't lose your freedoms and 
you also protest the lack of it in said product.


However, I've been reflecting on this and I think the unfortunate truth 
is that software freedom is currently a *privilege*. Of course it should 
be a right, but right now it isn't.


Digital technology is so intertwined with our lives that so many of our 
livelihoods depend on it. So many people would literally not be able to 
do their jobs if they refused to use every single piece of technology 
that's not 100% free as in freedom.


I think this is where the likes of Purism can come in. Like mike.valk 
said, "It's much better than the rest. And if we're successful we might 
generate enough money the do even better next time." If we don't support 
- or even villify - attempts at *improving* and *getting closer to* 
freedom, they we are not moving at all!


And like what Jonathan said with the slavery and civil rights examples, 
in some cases it is simply more realistic to take it one step at a time 
(or, I guess in software's case, removing one blob at a time).


We can talk about the huge leaps needed to reach 100% software freedom 
everywhere, but we need a realistic way of doing that in one step. If we 
don't know how to make that huge leap yet, then taking many of those 
smaller steps (even if they don't take us all the way) **is** definitely 
better than waiting for the huge leap to happen!


I admit I don't know all the details and intricacies of Purism's 
activities, but I know there was a lot of vitriol thrown its way for its 
laptops during development. But if absolutely no one supported their 
laptop campaigns, Purism might not have had the resource to come so 
close to freeing the Intel MEs that they are working on now. And isn't 
freeding the Intel ME something worth doing?


If we think Purism's communications are not 100% accurate in saying 
their products are not 100% free, that's a fair criticism. But rather 
than vilifying them and saying they're terrible people, shouldn't we try 
our best to engage them and suggest a better way to communicate that?


Again, I haven't been following Purism super closely so maybe I missed 
something, and definitely correct me if I'm wrong. But my bigger point 
is that sometimes even small steps are valuable and we shouldn't throw 
the baby out with the bathwater!


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Re: [Arm-netbook] libre 64-bit risc-v SoC

[Pen-Yuan Hsing]

On 03/05/17 16:30, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton wrote:

On Wed, May 3, 2017 at 4:24 PM, Pen-Yuan Hsing <penyuanhs...@gmail.com> wrote:

Thanks Luke. This just made me realise that I should bring this up the next
time I run into the local maker space. I only occasionally see them, but
will be sure to remember this!

Is the webpage designed for an interested maker/hacker or computer science
academic to easily understand?


  which one?  the one i'm maintaining on rhombus-tech is purely for
taking notes, so i don't lose track of the contacts / links that i
find.

  also it depends on what you'd like to help with.  if you'd like to
help with *this* project's efforts to create a riscv-64 SoC, then this
list and the rhombus tech wiki's a good starting point

  if however you'd like to simply make people aware of risc-v in
general then the riscv.org web site's the best place to refer them to.

l.
Sorry I wasn't clear. I was just wondering if the rhombus-tech page can 
be a "landing page" that I can forward people to. But if you think 
riscv.org is fine I can do that, too! That said, riscv.org probably 
doesn't emphasise the libre nature of it, does it? Therefore would it be 
helpful to have some sort of accessible introductory page that talks 
about how RISV-V is "fun" for hacking AND its importance in 100% libre 
computing?


As for me, I have no technical skills to actually help with development. 
That's why I originally asked if there are other ways to help!


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Re: [Arm-netbook] libre 64-bit risc-v SoC

[Pen-Yuan Hsing]

On 03/05/17 06:00, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton wrote:

On Wed, May 3, 2017 at 2:05 AM, Pen-Yuan Hsing <penyuanhs...@gmail.com> wrote:


I'm really really excited about a possible 100% libre RISC-V based computer.
Though I'm a backer of the most recent campaign (and can't wait to get it!
:)), I lack the knowledge/skills to actually help with the technical
development of this upcoming RISC card.
Is there anything I/we can do to help get this RISC initiative going?


  just spread the word (particularly when the new campaign comes up) -
also if you know of any business people willing to invest, meet any
investors particularly those with an ethical or social focus, do put
them in touch.

  also: universities.  if you happen to know any university professors
ask their Electrical Engineering Dept to consider research into
RISC-V.  it'll sort-of happen anyway (happening already) because it's
easy to get hold of the RISC-V design.

l.
Thanks Luke. This just made me realise that I should bring this up the 
next time I run into the local maker space. I only occasionally see 
them, but will be sure to remember this!


Is the webpage designed for an interested maker/hacker or computer 
science academic to easily understand?


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Re: [Arm-netbook] libre 64-bit risc-v SoC

[Pen-Yuan Hsing]

I'm really really excited about a possible 100% libre RISC-V based computer.
Though I'm a backer of the most recent campaign (and can't wait to get it! :)), 
I lack the knowledge/skills to actually help with the technical development of 
this upcoming RISC card.
Is there anything I/we can do to help get this RISC initiative going?

On 2017-04-28 08:36, Allan Mwenda wrote:

Yes. Do it. DO IT.

On 27 April 2017 14:21:08 GMT+03:00, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton 
 wrote:

ok so it would seem that the huge amount of work going into RISC-V
means that it's on track to becoming a steamroller that will squash
proprietary SoCs, so i'm quite happy to make sure that it's
not-so-subtly nudged in the right direction.

i've started a page where i am keeping notes:
http://rhombus-tech.net/riscv/libre_riscv/ and the general goal is to
create a desirable mass-volume low-cost SoC, meaning that it will need
to at least do 1080p60 video decode and have 3D graphics capability.
oh... and be entirely libre.

the plan is:

* to create an absolute basic SoC, starting from lowRISC (64-bit),
ORGFX (3D graphics) and MIAOW (OpenCL engine), in at least 90nm as a
low-cost proof-of-concept where mistakes can be iterated through
* provide the end-result to software developers so that they can have
actual real silicon to work with
* begin a first crowd-funding phase to create a 28nm (or better)
multi-core SMP SoC

for this first phase the interfaces that i've tracked down so far are
almost entirely fromopencores.org , meaning that 
there really should
be absolutely no need to license any costly hard macros.  that
*includes* a DDR3 controller (but does not include a DDR3 PHY, which
will need to be designed):

* DDR3 controller (not including PHY)
* lowRISC contains "minion cores" so can be soft-programmed to do any GPIO
* boot and debug through ZipCPU's UART (use an existing EC's on-board FLASH)
* OpenCores VGA controller (actually it's an LCD RGB/TTL controller)
* OpenCores ULPI USB 2.0 controller
* OpenCores USB-OTG 1.1 PHY

note that there are NO ANALOG INTERFACES in that.  this is *really*
important to avoid, because mixed analog and digital is incredibly
hard to get right.  also note that things like HDMI, SATA, and even
ethernet are quite deliberately NOT on the list.  Ethernet RMII (which
is digital) could be implemented in software using a minion core.  the
advantage of using the opencores VGA (actually LCD) controller is: i
already have the full source for a *complete* linux driver.

I2C, SPI, SD/MMC, UART, EINT and GPIO - all of these can be
software-programmed as bit-banging in the minion cores.

these interfaces, amazingly, are enough to do an SoC that, if put into
40nm, would easily compete with some of TI's offerings, as well as the
Allwinner R8 (aka A13).

i've also managed to get alliance and coriolis2 compiled on
debian/testing (took a while) so it *might* not be necessary even to
pay for the ASIC design tooling (the cost of which is insane).
coriolis2 includes a reasonable auto-router.  i still have yet to go
through the tutorials to see how it works.  for design rules: 90nm
design rules (stacks etc.) are actually publicly available, which
would potentially mean that a clock rate of at least 300mhz would be
achievable: interestingly 800mhz DDR3 RAM from 2012 used 90nm
geometry.  65 down to 40nm would be much more preferable but may be
hard to get.

graphics: i'm going through the list of people who have done GPUs (or
parts of one).  MIAOW, Nyuzi, ORGFX.  the gplgpu isn't gpl. it's been
modified to "the text of the GPL license plus an additional clause
which is that if you want to use this for commercial purposes then...
you can't". which is *NOT* a GPL license, it's a proprietary
commercial license!

MIAOW is just an OpenCL engine but a stonking good one that's
compatible with AMD's software.  nyuzi is an experimental GPU where i
hope its developer believes in its potential.  ORGFX i am currently
evaluating but it looks pretty damn good, and i think it is slightly
underestimated.  i could really use some help evaluating it properly.
my feeling is that a combination of MIAOW to handle shading and ORGFX
for the rendering would be a really powerful combination.

so.

it's basically doable.  comments and ideas welcome, please do edit the
page to keep track of noteshttp://rhombus-tech.net/riscv/libre_riscv/


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