In the Free Software camp, mere use of a non-Free, or proprietary piece of
software, let alone a non-Free operating system, constitutes subjugation to
developers. I am suggesting that few people, even in the "extreme" end of the
spectrum towards RMS's end have considered that hardware should be Free too.
Just look at what proprietary batteries have done to the laptop, phone, and
to some degree camera market. If people started having differing
wall-sockets, then maybe they would care.
As for sounding disrespectful I'm not sure how I managed that, but lots of
people I know think RMS is a jerk too, so...
I think it DOES matter that our CPU's were never intended for use in a Free
world. This is why we have always had to compromise, because there is always
some layer we cannot see, with the exception of x486, which is old, and even
that is "open" only by accident, by being on the market over 20 years.
Now these platforms arise, like MilkyMist One and Ben Nanonote that are
tailored from day 0 to only run Free Software and almost no one knows about
them. Not only that, few even see the point! Perhaps so much talk of Free
Software has prevented us from logically extending the societal changes the
movement is working for. Do we really want a world with Free Software but NOT
Free hardware? We would have to reverse engineer everything and still be in
legal danger.
As for the CPU's, MIPS is somewhat better than Intel, but the real case in
point is Qi-hardware's Milkymist Soc which includes graphics acceleration.
The entire unit takes 5W total. Even the casing is copyleft.
