sorry, i'm receiving this as digest mode, from libreplanet, and haven't been watching it (or the other lists cc'd). i'll try to recreate the cc set of lists, apologies in advance if this doesn't get through to all of them. also, please be aware that i'm leaving for HK in about 10 hours time and it's an extremely long flight, so i'll be offline for at least the next 2 days.
also i'm adding arm-netbook (needs subscription) because i'd like to make people on that list aware of this discussion, which appears to have been ongoing for some time.
I disagree. There is simply nothing you can compare this project to. We are achieving results that can't be demonstrated via any other means. If we could get here some other way at a lower cost with the same long term impact I would have gone that route.
See what Olimex has been doing for years then.
you're aware that olimex operates as a criminal cartel, from shipping GPL-violating A10 bootloaders and kernels provided by Allwinner, back around 2011/2012? you're also aware that with the sole exception of the olimex laptop's PCBs the only thing that they provide is auto-generated PDFs *from* the schematics source code... not the actual schematics and certainly not the PCB design files?
They're also coming up with a laptop design.
... where they've taken off-the-shelf china-sourced (proprietary) casework: i started the GPLv3+ casework project for the EOMA68 15.6in laptop housing *two years* ago as a completely and fully libre project. you can verify that by looking at the git commit logs.
tsvetan has caused a hell of a lot of trouble for the EOMA68 project and has sponged off of the resources of a *lot* of people. he truly doesn't understand the word "libre". at all.
also, the A64's processor - which tsvetan is using for the olimex laptop - requires a proprietary early-bootloader. in fact, the first A64 SDK that came out was an absolute mess, comprising several GPL violations in both the early-bootloader, the u-boot source *and* the linux kernel. the SDK was even exclusively distributed over a chinese illegal filesharing network (this is an "official" released SDK from allwinner!)
over a considerable period of time, pine64 and the sunxi community worked to eliminate as many of those GPL violations as they could, but Allwinner insisted on keeping the early-bootloader proprietary.
so at present the A64 is classified as a "non-libre" processor. that it's the basis of the olimex laptop tells you everything you need to know.
to tsevetan's credit he is doing his best as he understands it, but there's nobody taking him to task on the things that matter to software freedom. he's happy to take your money even if it means selling you product that requires proprietary software. he's *less* happy to then *invest* that money into helping solve the issues which create all the problems that go *with* proprietary software.
now, whilst tsevtan is making money selling you hardware that requires non-free components to operate basic functions, i've put my foot down and said NO, i will NOT sell GPL-violating product. i don't care if that means it's harder to deliver ethical products, i'll deal with that on an ongoing basis, but here's the thing: it means i've established a reputation for setting some ethical rules *AND STUCK TO THEM*.
I agree that you went steps further than most before, but this is incremental improvement, not something truly new and groundbreaking compared to what existed before.
hmmm, an interesting perspective, which i feel may be based on not being aware of the sheer overwhelming number of issues being tackled (all at once).
yes it's "incremental improvement" but it's a MASSIVE stack of MULTIPLE "incremental improvements", all done at once.
*nobody* has tried to do that before. not Dell, not Olimex, not IBM - *nobody*.
for example you compare the EOMA68 Housing to the olimex laptop. the olimex laptop's casework is proprietary (the EOMA68 Housing's is GPLv3+ libre-licensed). so automatically you can see that it's nowhere near being a legitimate comparison.
The issue is your looking at one thing. A few specs. It's not the specs? that matter. It's the standard, it's the modularization, it's the? response and cooperation we are getting already as a result of our? actions here, etc. Intel and AMD are not going to cooperate and building? off of other companies products (higher up the chain) is not a reliable? long term solution.
Again, I don't see how modularization changes anything here.
you can't focus on just the one aspect and conclude that "it's not significant". bear in mind that this has been a 5 year project, where i've had 15 years of working near-exclusively with software libre, looking at the endemic and systemic problems and coming up with a *long-term* strategy to tackle *all* of the issues associated with the consequences of proprietary computing... *all at once*.
modularisation (and having open standards despite what the wikipedia-page-that's-already-scheduled-for-deletion would have you believe) is one - *one* - critical - *critical* part of that strategy.
Hardware availability has never been the problem.
libre hardware availability has *always* been a problem. entropy guarantees that it always will. you actually have to make a concerted continuous effort to push back against the corner-cost-cutting of the mass-volume industry.
For laptops, we only had minor annoyances,?like Wi-Fi chips that require proprietary firmwares,
proprietary firmware for WIFI is a bit more than a "minor" annoyance, paul!
with the most advanced designs for freedom like ARM Chromebooks. So you took a step forward there. It's not a revolution, it's a step forward: solving the (minor) Wi-Fi issue. For single-board computers, you didn't bring any specific improvement over Olimex's Allwinner boards.
at least we waited until we could get the entire set of sources for as much of the hardware as we could get (the only exception being that we haven't got a libre MALI driver yet, but there's even a plan to deal with that).
no, paul, what you're missing here is that there's an *active committment* to tackling the pain, cost burden and inconvenience that proprietary software (and hardware) causes.
everybody else - Dell, IBM, HP, Asus, Olimex, they're all *sleep-walking* - making MONEY off of you (and everyone else) because you really don't know any better, you think it's *okay* to throw away a perfectly good printer because its proprietary driver is no longer "compatible" with modern OSes.
there's no *active* committment from any of these companies to *actually* try and solve the problems.... because they don't understand that there *is* even a problem!
Again, I don't want to sound like your project doesn't matter to me, because it really does. Only that it's an improved iteration over what exists rather than whole new ground. And that's totally fine by the way, it is a very sane way to go. It also shows that you're not the only person on earth caring about these issues and producing hardware that solves an increasing number of them (even though I suspect some other players produce devices with such results without really aiming at that goal).
exactly. there's no coordinated committment. they sell you product because you buy it... because you don't have any other choices, so you don't ask, so you keep buying more product, which gives them money to keep on doing what they're doing....
.... it's a vicious self-sustaining cycle that has to be broken by an *active* committment.
ok i leave it at that.
l.
On 2016-09-10 at 20:38:34 +0100, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton wrote:
you're also aware that with the sole exception of the olimex laptop's PCBs the only thing that they provide is auto-generated PDFs *from* the schematics source code... not the actual schematics and certainly not the PCB design files?
That's false: for the boards marked with the OSHW logo (which include the olinuxino boards and a number of microcontroller based ones, but not the SOM ones) schematics are provided, either as a zip file in the product page or in a github repository:
https://github.com/OLIMEX/OLINUXINO
It is true that most of those schematics are in Eagle format, and thus can't be opened with Free Software (which is the reason I didn't actually open them), and they are only moving on to using Kicad for the later boards, but that's definitely not the same as not providing schematics at all.
[...] you're aware that olimex operates as a criminal cartel, from shipping GPL-violating A10 bootloaders and kernels provided by Allwinner, back around 2011/2012? [...] now, whilst tsevtan is making money selling you hardware that requires non-free components to operate basic functions, i've put my foot down and said NO, i will NOT sell GPL-violating product.
While it's true that you are not violating the GPL yourself (thankfully!) by not using Allwinner-provided code, if (and that's a HUGE if) violating a civil law (copyright) turns a company into a criminal cartel then you are working with a criminal cartel yourself, since Allwinner is still violating the GPL with their new processors.
--- crowd-funded eco-conscious hardware: https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68
On Sun, Sep 11, 2016 at 1:16 PM, Elena ``of Valhalla'' valhalla-l@trueelena.org wrote:
On 2016-09-10 at 20:38:34 +0100, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton wrote:
you're also aware that with the sole exception of the olimex laptop's PCBs the only thing that they provide is auto-generated PDFs *from* the schematics source code... not the actual schematics and certainly not the PCB design files?
That's false: for the boards marked with the OSHW logo (which include the olinuxino boards and a number of microcontroller based ones, but not the SOM ones) schematics are provided, either as a zip file in the product page or in a github repository:
oh good! looks like i was wrong. huh, how about that. thank you for pointing that out, elena - really appreciated.
It is true that most of those schematics are in Eagle format, and thus can't be opened with Free Software (which is the reason I didn't actually open them), and they are only moving on to using Kicad for the later boards, but that's definitely not the same as not providing schematics at all.
very true.
[...] you're aware that olimex operates as a criminal cartel, from shipping GPL-violating A10 bootloaders and kernels provided by Allwinner, back around 2011/2012? [...] now, whilst tsevtan is making money selling you hardware that requires non-free components to operate basic functions, i've put my foot down and said NO, i will NOT sell GPL-violating product.
While it's true that you are not violating the GPL yourself (thankfully!) by not using Allwinner-provided code, if (and that's a HUGE if) violating a civil law (copyright) turns a company into a criminal cartel then you are working with a criminal cartel yourself, since Allwinner is still violating the GPL with their new processors.
ok - it doesn't work that way. it's to do with the GPL license. if i was to distribute allwinner's original GPL-violating binaries, and received a request for the source code, and did not supply it (because i couldn't), *then* i would also be criminally-infringing copyright law if i did not cease and desist from distribution of the product.
however, i haven't *done* that, elena. i waited until the full source code (reverse-engineered or just simply made available by allwinner... in some cases years later) was available.
l.
Hi,
Le samedi 10 septembre 2016 à 20:38 +0100, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton a écrit :
I disagree. There is simply nothing you can compare this project to. We are achieving results that can't be demonstrated via any other means. If we could get here some other way at a lower cost with the same long term impact I would have gone that route.
See what Olimex has been doing for years then.
you're aware that olimex operates as a criminal cartel,
This is a very strong accusation and I definitely do not share that perspective, at all.
from shipping GPL-violating A10 bootloaders and kernels provided by Allwinner, back around 2011/2012?
Olimex has always been about producing community-friendly boards, not about the software. Nevertheless, Olimex has been involved with the linux-sunxi community from the early days and has always been very supportive, by providing developers with hardware to work on, taking part in the community, etc.
What software they ship, or used to ship by default is IMHO a bit irrelevant. They shipped whatever Allwinner provided but always supported community free software effort. Also, when they started with Allwinner, mainline software wasn't an option.
you're also aware that with the sole exception of the olimex laptop's PCBs the only thing that they provide is auto-generated PDFs *from* the schematics source code... not the actual schematics and certainly not the PCB design files?
Huh? This is factually not correct. Olimex has released the PCB source designs of a number of Allwinner boards. That's what those .brd and .sch files are at: https://github.com/OLIMEX/OLINUXINO/tree/master/HARDWARE/
Better yet, the latest one (A64) was designed with KiCad, so those design sources can even be handled with free software! This is an unprecedented achievement that even the EOMA68 project has not reached (yet).
Get https://github.com/OLIMEX/OLINUXINO/tree/master/HARDWARE/A64-OLinuXino/A64-O linuXino_Rev_A and open it up with KiCad if you wish to see for yourself!
They're also coming up with a laptop design.
... where they've taken off-the-shelf china-sourced (proprietary) casework: i started the GPLv3+ casework project for the EOMA68 15.6in laptop housing *two years* ago as a completely and fully libre project. you can verify that by looking at the git commit logs.
Of course, I do agree that free mechanical designs are important and a great thing to have, so I'm very happy that the EOMA laptop housing design is free.
But my focus here was about digital technology, not mechanical parts. This is out of that scope.
tsvetan has caused a hell of a lot of trouble for the EOMA68 project and has sponged off of the resources of a *lot* of people. he truly doesn't understand the word "libre". at all.
I don't share that perspective. I think his contribution to freedom in digital technology has been solid and significant. The devices he's producing show as much.
also, the A64's processor - which tsvetan is using for the olimex laptop - requires a proprietary early-bootloader. in fact, the first A64 SDK that came out was an absolute mess, comprising several GPL violations in both the early-bootloader, the u-boot source *and* the linux kernel. the SDK was even exclusively distributed over a chinese illegal filesharing network (this is an "official" released SDK from allwinner!)
Of course, we all know that, but that's how you move forward! We can't just wait for the situation to be magically resolved before considering producing hardware with it, and staying away from it with a teen-feet-pole before. Simply because no change will ensue of that. Olimex has the ability to create boards early-on, that will encourage the community to work on this chip, and also create leverage with Allwinner.
So it's really not about what the situation is right now, but about what it can possibly become. Allwinner chips have *always* been a mess to deal with at first, but efforts from companies like Olimex and the community made it possible to have the kind of support we know today for chips like the A20.
Also bear in mind that you were able to get the EOMA68 together, with that level of free software support, in part thanks to people like Tsvetan who put together (free hardware) boards for the community to work on those chips and supported their efforts early on, when the situation is indeed a mess.
over a considerable period of time, pine64 and the sunxi community worked to eliminate as many of those GPL violations as they could, but Allwinner insisted on keeping the early-bootloader proprietary.
so at present the A64 is classified as a "non-libre" processor. that it's the basis of the olimex laptop tells you everything you need to know.
Again, you're looking at the situation right now, which indeed matches what you describe. However, I think Olimex sees a lot of potential in A64 and so do I. Only time will tell whether it was a dead-end or not.
now, whilst tsevtan is making money selling you hardware that requires non-free components to operate basic functions, i've put my foot down and said NO, i will NOT sell GPL-violating product. i don't care if that means it's harder to deliver ethical products, i'll deal with that on an ongoing basis, but here's the thing: it means i've established a reputation for setting some ethical rules *AND STUCK TO THEM*.
Frankly, I don't care that a device doesn't work with free software right now if it has potential to be liberated eventually and if producing that device can create the leverage to drive exactly that effort. This is what has always happened with Allwinner chips.
But of course, Olimex and you are not in the same position. They can afford to produce boards with chips that still have very early free software support. On the other hand, you need something that has good free software support. One comes after the other.
I'm really surprised that you don't see things this way and attack Olimex for what level of support their latest products have *right now*.
I agree that you went steps further than most before, but this is incremental improvement, not something truly new and groundbreaking compared to what existed before.
hmmm, an interesting perspective, which i feel may be based on not being aware of the sheer overwhelming number of issues being tackled (all at once).
yes it's "incremental improvement" but it's a MASSIVE stack of MULTIPLE "incremental improvements", all done at once.
From what I can see, the actual improvements (again, from the digital technology side of things, so I'm not including the mechanical design) come down to not including a Wi-Fi chip that requires proprietary software in a laptop design, which is what had been lacking from the ARM Chromebooks. If you see anything else, please state it clearly.
There are also rare occurences in your design, meaning that only few products before (such as the ARM Chromebooks or the Novena) had reached that level of support, such as: using a SoC that has few freedom flaws (GPU), having a free software keyboard controller. We could also add free hardware design there (but I'm still a bit confused about what the situation actually is and didn't take the time to look it up properly).
If you feel like I'm missing something substantial, please let me know.
*nobody* has tried to do that before. not Dell, not Olimex, not IBM
- *nobody*.
for example you compare the EOMA68 Housing to the olimex laptop. the olimex laptop's casework is proprietary (the EOMA68 Housing's is GPLv3+ libre-licensed). so automatically you can see that it's nowhere near being a legitimate comparison.
Again, my point is about digital technology here, not mechanical parts.
The issue is your looking at one thing. A few specs. It's not the specs? that matter. It's the standard, it's the modularization, it's the? response and cooperation we are getting already as a result of our? actions here, etc. Intel and AMD are not going to cooperate and building? off of other companies products (higher up the chain) is not a reliable? long term solution.
Again, I don't see how modularization changes anything here.
you can't focus on just the one aspect and conclude that "it's not significant". bear in mind that this has been a 5 year project, where i've had 15 years of working near-exclusively with software libre, looking at the endemic and systemic problems and coming up with a *long-term* strategy to tackle *all* of the issues associated with the consequences of proprietary computing... *all at once*.
modularisation (and having open standards despite what the wikipedia-page-that's-already-scheduled-for-deletion would have you believe) is one - *one* - critical - *critical* part of that strategy.
Again, everything you can do with modularization you could do by producing new versions of boards. It solves the environmental problem and is convenient to users, but has little to do with freedom in digital technology. If you have actual specific point to counter those points (other than vague statements like "part of a strategy"), I'd be happy to react to them.
Hardware availability has never been the problem.
libre hardware availability has *always* been a problem. entropy guarantees that it always will. you actually have to make a concerted continuous effort to push back against the corner-cost-cutting of the mass-volume industry.
So if we're talking about free hardware projects, then I'll agree that the situation hasn't been that great. As far as I know, only Olimex, Novena and a few others have been producing free hardware computers that work well with free software.
But again, I'm still confused about the hardware freedom situation of your device. The most meaningful part is, of course, the EOMA68 board with the A20, not the carriers (even though having them as free hardware is very nice).
On the other hand, the availability of boards that have components that work well with free software have never been a problem, there's not discussion to have here.
For laptops, we only had minor annoyances,?like Wi-Fi chips that require proprietary firmwares,
proprietary firmware for WIFI is a bit more than a "minor" annoyance, paul!
That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that there are easy and nearly painless ways to solve these problems, by using external ath9k_htc USB dongles. This fact (and this fact only) reduces the presence of a Wi-Fi peripheral that requires a non-free firmware to a minor annoyance.
(the only exception being that we haven't got a libre MALI driver yet, but there's even a plan to deal with that).
Glad to hear it.
no, paul, what you're missing here is that there's an *active committment* to tackling the pain, cost burden and inconvenience that proprietary software (and hardware) causes.
Well, I have been talking about the freedom situation in digital technology all along, not commitment. I do agree that commitment such as the one displayed with your project is a rare thing. And that is indeed groundbreaking (even though projects like the Novena were here before), because that kind of intent is clearly lacking from e.g. companies producing Chromebooks, so it rather feels like we got lucky (or that people inside these companies care a lot, but it doesn't reflect in the company's PR).
Commitment is important for the long run, so I'm really glad you're around. We can't just rely on sheer luck to get devices that do well with free software from mainstream manufacturers, even though we've had good luck a great number of times already (and bad luck an astonishingly greater number of times, too).
there's no *active* committment from any of these companies to *actually* try and solve the problems.... because they don't understand that there *is* even a problem!
I wouldn't include Olimex in that list, but I share your views on that.
.... it's a vicious self-sustaining cycle that has to be broken by an *active* committment.
Definitely, that's a (if not the only) reliable (but harder and perhaps more dangerous) way to achieve progress for freedom in digital technology. Going with luck has worked well in some areas (again, ARM Chromebooks), but we knows when our luck will turn.
Even though this conversation may have taken a harsh tone at times and places, I do believe we share the same views and only disagree on details (which fill up most of our discussions here). I hope this is clear and this discussion doesn't come across as a strong attack against what you're doing!
Cheers,
--- crowd-funded eco-conscious hardware: https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68
On Sun, Sep 11, 2016 at 2:04 PM, Paul Kocialkowski contact@paulk.fr wrote:
Hi,
Le samedi 10 septembre 2016 à 20:38 +0100, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton a écrit :
I disagree. There is simply nothing you can compare this project to. We are achieving results that can't be demonstrated via any other means. If we could get here some other way at a lower cost with the same long term impact I would have gone that route.
See what Olimex has been doing for years then.
you're aware that olimex operates as a criminal cartel,
This is a very strong accusation and I definitely do not share that perspective, at all.
it dates back several years. tsvetan's reaction when i brought this up on the gpl-violations mailing list was to try to belittle me (in front of 20,000 people) as a way to dodge the question. "what are you talking about, idiot, you've totally failed to even bother to release any product, what a total waster you are, har har, go away little loser i don't have to answer your question because you are such a failure" was the general gist of his response.
from shipping GPL-violating A10 bootloaders and kernels provided by Allwinner, back around 2011/2012?
Olimex has always been about producing community-friendly boards, not about the software. Nevertheless, Olimex has been involved with the linux-sunxi community from the early days
paul: you may not be aware that the linux-sunxi community formed around the arm-netbook mailing list and resources. the people using the resources that i set up decided to *create* the sunxi mailing list and wiki and to form their own community.
and has always been very supportive, by providing developers with hardware to work on, taking part in the community, etc.
that doesn't change the fact that the very early boards with the A10 processor were shipped by default with allwinner's original GPL-violating bootloader, u-boot and linux kernel. now, the GPL is very very clear: on request you must supply the *EXACT* source and *EXACT* tools used to compile the *EXACT* binaries that were shipped.
if you can't do that, you MUST cease and desist distribution. if you do not cease and desist distribution, you are no longer in compliance with the license. if you are no longer in compliance with the license but CONTINUE to distribute GPL code (without a license), *that* is criminal infringement.
and if a company is in criminal infringement of copyright law, the company is no longer operating as a company but is in fact an organised crime syndicate: a criminal cartel.
What software they ship, or used to ship by default is IMHO a bit irrelevant. They shipped whatever Allwinner provided
... which was GPL violating. which was why i never shipped product. i waited until the full GPL source was available. which took several years.
but always supported community free software effort.
Also, when they started with Allwinner, mainline software wasn't an option.
that's no excuse, paul.
you're aware that it was me who released the very first allwinner u-boot and linux kernel sources, for the a10? i obtained them from allwinner and immediately made them available on git.rhombus-tech.net. tom cubie, who was an allwinner employee at the time, bought some Mele A1000s and, in a very enterprising spirit, sold them as $50 developer boards from his aliexpress account. from there he went on to develop his own company, made the first cubieboard and began selling it.
at around the same time the linux-sunxi community was set up... but it *started* on arm-netbook.
you're also aware that with the sole exception of the olimex laptop's PCBs the only thing that they provide is auto-generated PDFs *from* the schematics source code... not the actual schematics and certainly not the PCB design files?
Huh? This is factually not correct. Olimex has released the PCB source designs of a number of Allwinner boards. That's what those .brd and .sch files are at: https://github.com/OLIMEX/OLINUXINO/tree/master/HARDWARE/
yeah, elena kindly pointed this out as well [on arm-netbook - thanks elena, really appreciated that you - and paul too - corrected me here] i've been head-down on the eoma68 designs for the last three of the past five years, so wasn't even aware these resources *existed*.
Better yet, the latest one (A64) was designed with KiCad, so those design sources can even be handled with free software! This is an unprecedented achievement that even the EOMA68 project has not reached (yet).
there's a reason for that: i'm not an electronics engineer (and KiCAD simply wasn't ready for use). five years ago i asked on the arm-netbook mailing list if anybody would like to help out, in return for profit-sharing in the end result. due to some "deliberate" misunderstandings (which are still going around the internet) various people saw my offer as a "demand" instead of what it genuinely was: an offer to share in the profits. i won't go into details.
so, i began to try to use KiCAD myself (see http://git.rhombus-tech.net/?p=eoma.git). it didn't go very well. there were some severe bugs in KiCAD (that have still yet to be fixed) that make using KiCAD for such large BGA ICs a near impossibility: i had to hand-edit the library parts. when it came to actually doing the PCBs the lack of professional-level features met head-long with my lack of knowledge of electronics CAD design and i began to realise very very quickly that i was completely out of my depth.
rather than end up spending time (and money) doing iterative PCB design (which could be a bottomless pit) i made a number of other efforts to invite other people to profit-share in the planned project scope, but in the end these also fell through and i had to teach myself electronics CAD design. with no experience in this field i was forced into the position of first paying people to do CAD designs for me, and then later when there wasn't a financial budget available, learning and using the professional CAD software that we'd paid those people to develop the designs in.
now, EOMA68 succeeds in the engineering arena by making it simpler for people to update sophisticated products at a fraction of the cost of other "monolithic" designs. a "monolithic" design is typically a minimum of a 4-layer PCB to cover the SoC and the DDR3 RAM. if there's a 64-bit RAM path you are usually looking at a 6-layer or 8-layer PCB. that's *expensive* territory: $700 for QTY 5 PCBs, $400 for components, and $600 for assembly. make a single mistake and it's another $1800 and another 4-6 weeks turnaround.
and at the end of all that effort, you're "on the clock" as to the usefulness of the product, because the key part - the processor - is going to be superceded very very quickly. with specialist vendor-lockin on the various interfaces you're even *more* on the hook, especially if the fabless semi company doing the SoC doesn't "grok" libre principles and releases GPL-violating android-only binaries.
now, what if there were "modules" which you knew complied to a simple interface that you could just get off-the-shelf, even from Best Buy or Walmart, and could make a simply 2-layer PCB around it? that would be amazing, wouldn't it?
what would be even better would be if there were plenty of example schematics and PCB designs around that you could work from, that were simple 2-layer PCBs that you could pay china or eastern european companies to make with a 48-hour turnaround at the fraction of the cost of 4+ layer PCBs? it would be *even better* if those reference designs were available as gEDA or KiCAD designs, wouldn't it?
so this is why i started that KiCAD-based set of designs back in 2011... unfortunately i haven't had time to come back and revisit them. i understand from joe micha that KiCAD has a "Gerber Import" feature, so it *should* be possible to import (and recreate) KiCAD GPL compliant sources from pretty much any proprietary CAD package, with quite a bit of work. i hear also that there are some proprietary importers... it's complicated, hazardous, but doable.
all of these things i haven't got time to do immediately, myself, but it is definitely part of the vision - it always was. i've not been talking much online about these things because i've had to focus instead on "getting it done". bringing the project out of that critical "vapourware" barrier... but sticking to
Get https://github.com/OLIMEX/OLINUXINO/tree/master/HARDWARE/A64-OLinuXino/A64-O linuXino_Rev_A and open it up with KiCad if you wish to see for yourself!
when the A64 doesn't require a proprietary bootloader, i'll start the evaluation process again. however given that the A64 is a 40nm IC and the Cortex A53 is 15% more power-hungry performance-watt-wise than a Cortex A7 *and* it's limited to 2GB RAM as a hard limit, i'm much more inclined to go with a quad-core Cortex A7 instead, or an 8-core 28nm (or both).
currently "in the slot" for evaluation is the Samsung/Nexell S5P6818 and the Allwinner R40. both of those are an improvement over the A64. the S5P6818 is a 28nm octa-core A53 so is power-equivalent to the R40 (40-28nm is a 2x power improvement, but it's double the number of cores so roughly back up to the same power usage). we don't yet know what geometry the R40 is, but if we assume it's 40nm then it will be at least 15% more power-efficient than the A64.
basically it's highly likely that i'll skip the A64 entirely.
They're also coming up with a laptop design.
... where they've taken off-the-shelf china-sourced (proprietary) casework: i started the GPLv3+ casework project for the EOMA68 15.6in laptop housing *two years* ago as a completely and fully libre project. you can verify that by looking at the git commit logs.
Of course, I do agree that free mechanical designs are important and a great thing to have, so I'm very happy that the EOMA laptop housing design is free.
But my focus here was about digital technology, not mechanical parts. This is out of that scope.
tsvetan has caused a hell of a lot of trouble for the EOMA68 project and has sponged off of the resources of a *lot* of people. he truly doesn't understand the word "libre". at all.
I don't share that perspective.
you didn't see the message he wrote (and deleted in under 48 hours) when he announced the A64 laptop project. when somebody pointed out that the A64 SDK was *yet another* example of GPL-violating crapware from allwinner, and that it contained a proprietary early-bootloader as well as GPL-violating binary-only libraries (libnand... AGAIN... god those scripts from tom cubie's manager back in 2011 have got to die...) tsvetan responded something along the lines of, "to be honest i really don't understand the fuss over this proprietary blob stuff".
when i returned 48 hours later he'd deleted the message.
I think his contribution to freedom in digital technology has been solid and significant. The devices he's producing show as much.
given that he's released the designs of a number of products - libre-licensed full SCH and PCB files which i wasn't aware of before - i have to agree with you. but be under absolutely no illusion that it's all "roses". he's prepared to compromise on ethics (because he doesn't understand their importance - as in he *genuinely* doesn't understand it). he'd rather take your money.
also, the A64's processor - which tsvetan is using for the olimex laptop - requires a proprietary early-bootloader. in fact, the first A64 SDK that came out was an absolute mess, comprising several GPL violations in both the early-bootloader, the u-boot source *and* the linux kernel. the SDK was even exclusively distributed over a chinese illegal filesharing network (this is an "official" released SDK from allwinner!)
Of course, we all know that, but that's how you move forward! We can't just wait for the situation to be magically resolved before considering producing hardware with it, and staying away from it with a teen-feet-pole before.
true.
Simply because no change will ensue of that. Olimex has the ability to create boards early-on, that will encourage the community to work on this chip, and also create leverage with Allwinner.
ok. right. are you familiar with the story behind the Allwinner R8 "NextThingCo" "CHIP" computer? that was going to be a GPL-violating product until some people on the crowd-funding campaign pointed out that it would be a bit of a problem for a USA-based company to be importing copyright-violating product.
so, NextThingCo had a rather urgent meeting with Allwinner (one of the team worked for them so knew who to call), and basically "put their foot down". they said, in effect, "give us the source, or you don't get the order. oh... and we have 50,000 orders".
end result? allwinner's R-Series team is now scrambling to get fully GPL-compliant source code out the door (and i am arranging to go over to the main office in Zhuhai in a few days time to help them out).
*THIS* is what both Pine64 and Tsvetan *SHOULD* have done with the A64. they should have said, "give us the source, or you don't get our money". it's only 200 lines of code in this case: libdram is mostly identical in all versions, there's one main function (the DDR3 initialisation).
because they *didn't* put their foot down when it mattered, the sunxi community is now forced to reverse-engineer libdram.
these kinds of compromises when it matters are *VITAL* lost opportunities.... all because people like Tsvetan and the team at Pine64 prefer to take your money.
So it's really not about what the situation is right now, but about what it can possibly become. Allwinner chips have *always* been a mess to deal with at first, but efforts from companies like Olimex and the community made it possible to have the kind of support we know today for chips like the A20.
paul, i reiterate here: the sunxi community exists because of my early efforts :) i *am* aware of the sunxi community's work since then: i've been an indirect contributor myself (i did the reverse-engineering of USB-FEL that allowed the sunxi-tools fel-boot program to be completed - i used usbmon from outside of a qemu session running LIVESUIT.EXE to sniff the usb traffic).
Also bear in mind that you were able to get the EOMA68 together, with that level of free software support, in part thanks to people like Tsvetan who put together (free hardware) boards for the community to work on those chips and supported their efforts early on, when the situation is indeed a mess.
this isn't historically accurate: back in 2010, 2011 it was my first release of the A10 u-boot and kernel source, and the rhombus-tech wiki, arm-netbook mailing list and irc channel, using the Mele A1000 and then tom cubie's cubieboards that allowed the sunxi community to first form: tsvetan's boards came out at least a year later (i think) than the first cubieboard. *later* boards - around... probably something like.... 2012: *then* yes, you are correct.
over a considerable period of time, pine64 and the sunxi community worked to eliminate as many of those GPL violations as they could, but Allwinner insisted on keeping the early-bootloader proprietary.
so at present the A64 is classified as a "non-libre" processor. that it's the basis of the olimex laptop tells you everything you need to know.
Again, you're looking at the situation right now, which indeed matches what you describe. However, I think Olimex sees a lot of potential in A64 and so do I. Only time will tell whether it was a dead-end or not.
now, whilst tsevtan is making money selling you hardware that requires non-free components to operate basic functions, i've put my foot down and said NO, i will NOT sell GPL-violating product. i don't care if that means it's harder to deliver ethical products, i'll deal with that on an ongoing basis, but here's the thing: it means i've established a reputation for setting some ethical rules *AND STUCK TO THEM*.
Frankly, I don't care that a device doesn't work with free software right now if it has potential to be liberated eventually
this is an extremely exhausting approach that burdens the entire sunxi community with a hell of a lot of unpaid work.... and will result in each and every processor being *years* behind. if it takes 2 years to complete the reverse-engineering, that's an *entire generation* behind! look at how long it took to get the full source together for the A20! in the meantime the A33, A31, A83 *and* the A64 came out!
as a community we simply cannot be expected to shoulder the burden of responsibility for clearing up Allwinner's mess, only to be "rewarded" with having to tolerate being at least *TWO YEARS* behind the times in terms of what processors are available for us to use in libre projects! that's completely insane!
no. i REJECT that approach.
But of course, Olimex and you are not in the same position.
it's much more than that. i'm first and foremost a software libre engineer and advocate. i place libre principles FIRST. i do NOT place "making money" first and foremost. i choose NOT to compromise on software freedom.
and i also choose to FIND WAYS to GET software freedom and to create an ethical business.
so it's not that we are not "in the same position", it's that we operate *FROM* totally different positions. Tsvetan (and pine64, and numerous china-based OEMs) operate from the basis of "money first, software freedom second".
I'm really surprised that you don't see things this way and attack Olimex for what level of support their latest products have *right now*.
as you can see from the length of what i've outlined above, it's complicated. summary is: if you're prepared to prioritise "making money" over "libre principles", basically you'll never get the source. continuing to give money to allwinner *without* asking for the source will basically give them the message that it's *OKAY* for them to continue to violate the GPL. NextThingCo's ballsy gamble is working. it's got the message across to the R-Series team that they *have* to release the source.
remember: allwinner is a complicated company. there are multiple very powerful investors, all of them carving out their own niches under the "umbrella" of what we *believe* - from the outside - is a single unified organisation: nothing could be further from the truth.
I agree that you went steps further than most before, but this is incremental improvement, not something truly new and groundbreaking compared to what existed before.
hmmm, an interesting perspective, which i feel may be based on not being aware of the sheer overwhelming number of issues being tackled (all at once).
yes it's "incremental improvement" but it's a MASSIVE stack of MULTIPLE "incremental improvements", all done at once.
From what I can see, the actual improvements (again, from the digital technology side of things, so I'm not including the mechanical design) come down to not including a Wi-Fi chip that requires proprietary software in a laptop design, which is what had been lacking from the ARM Chromebooks. If you see anything else, please state it clearly.
there's too much to cover, paul. i'm not saying that lightly: the fact that the ecocomputing whitepaper is seventeen *thousand* words long is testament to that. it's not even specifically about the actual *hardware*: the actual hardware specs is just a "response" (if you will) to the systemic approach that i've taken, after doing an extremely comprehensive analysis of the entire computing industry. if you start with the whitepaper you'll begin to get a feel for what EOMA68 is really about. http://rhombus-tech.net/whitepapers/ecocomputing_07sep2015/
you have to bear in mind that the reactions of various people back in 2011 to what i was doing were so "wtf??" that i realised that i wasn't going to get anywhere until i had working hardware. that took 3-4 years to get to the crowdfunding campaign, which meant that there's been 3-4 *years* where i've been almost completely out of the picture in the software libre world, it's been so intense that i had to just "get on with it" (and i realised that i wasn't going to get any help, so *had* to get it done myself).
the crowdfunding campaign was - is - just the beginning of emerging from an extremely intense period of work, learning an entirely new field (hardware design) in order to be in a position to influence an entire industry and turn it away from the entropic field of "proprietary software / hardware because it's cheaper". reality is: it *isn't* cheaper (long-term).
There are also rare occurences in your design, meaning that only few products before (such as the ARM Chromebooks or the Novena) had reached that level of support, such as: using a SoC that has few freedom flaws (GPU), having a free software keyboard controller. We could also add free hardware design there (but I'm still a bit confused about what the situation actually is and didn't take the time to look it up properly).
dr stallman and i have been talking about this (privately). the terms "open hardware", "open source hardware" and "libre hardware" are *all* very misleading, because "hardware" could mean *anything*. it could be spoons, it could be heavy machinery, it could be casework, it could be PCBs, it could be ASICs (actual silicon ICs).
so the whole episode (this thread) comes back to all of us (as a community) using a rather thoroughly ambiguous term. if we want to be clear, we should be using the words "libre PCB designs", "libre casework designs" and so on - *not* "libre hardware". it's way too general.
... oops... :)
If you feel like I'm missing something substantial, please let me know.
you're missing an entire five years of work - the entire rhombus-tech initiative - which has run in parallel in the background side-by-side with the sunxi community efforts. i've stayed off of the sunxi resources because they're using nonfree infrastructure. sunxi mailing list: runs off the non-free google groups. sunxi git repositories: runs off the non-free github repositories. the key developers know me (because they were originally members of the arm-netbook mailing list), and we do occasionally talk (in private email) - but most people who use the sunxi mailing list don't even know that i exist.
*nobody* has tried to do that before. not Dell, not Olimex, not IBM
- *nobody*.
for example you compare the EOMA68 Housing to the olimex laptop. the olimex laptop's casework is proprietary (the EOMA68 Housing's is GPLv3+ libre-licensed). so automatically you can see that it's nowhere near being a legitimate comparison.
Again, my point is about digital technology here, not mechanical parts.
i'm lost, sorry. i don't quite follow what the term "digital technology" refers to, but you use the term again below so i think i might have been able to deduce what you mean from context... correct me if i'm wrong.
The issue is your looking at one thing. A few specs. It's not the specs? that matter. It's the standard, it's the modularization, it's the? response and cooperation we are getting already as a result of our? actions here, etc. Intel and AMD are not going to cooperate and building? off of other companies products (higher up the chain) is not a reliable? long term solution.
Again, I don't see how modularization changes anything here.
you can't focus on just the one aspect and conclude that "it's not significant". bear in mind that this has been a 5 year project, where i've had 15 years of working near-exclusively with software libre, looking at the endemic and systemic problems and coming up with a *long-term* strategy to tackle *all* of the issues associated with the consequences of proprietary computing... *all at once*.
modularisation (and having open standards despite what the wikipedia-page-that's-already-scheduled-for-deletion would have you believe) is one - *one* - critical - *critical* part of that strategy.
Again, everything you can do with modularization you could do by producing new versions of boards.
no, you can't. read the ecocomputing whitepaper [and scan back up several paragraphs]
It solves the environmental problem and is convenient to users, but has little to do with freedom in digital technology.
you're correct here (and this is why i said that you're missing the point by focussing exclusively on *one* aspect). so if you *only* focus on the modularity, you'll be completely lost and won't understand.
what is needed is to have modularity... *AND* commit to software libre ethical principles. making this clear is extremely hard to do. even the fact that i've just added a DRM section (it's banned) to the EOMA68 standard *still* doesn't really get the full message across.
If you have actual specific point to counter those points (other than vague statements like "part of a strategy"), I'd be happy to react to them.
it's complicated, paul, and i'll be absolutely honest with you: i'm *working out* how to get it across, what i'm doing and why. *five years* and i still haven't been able to put what i'm doing into a simple clear statement... because of the sheer overwhelming depth and scale of what i'm attempting to do. it's so ambitious and audacious that when i start explain it, many people react with total disbelief, calling me "arrogant", "deluded" and many many other things which goes a long, long way to explaining the rather vehement reactions that you will see evidence of (if you look carefully enough).
so if you can promise *not* to react in the same way, i'll make an effort to explain. deal?
Hardware availability has never been the problem.
libre hardware availability has *always* been a problem. entropy guarantees that it always will. you actually have to make a concerted continuous effort to push back against the corner-cost-cutting of the mass-volume industry.
So if we're talking about free hardware projects, then I'll agree that the situation hasn't been that great. As far as I know, only Olimex, Novena and a few others have been producing free hardware computers that work well with free software.
But again, I'm still confused about the hardware freedom situation of your device. The most meaningful part is, of course, the EOMA68 board with the A20, not the carriers (even though having them as free hardware is very nice).
as i have the right (under the GPL) to release the CAD designs when i actually ship, that's what i'll be doing. if i release the designs *right now*, there's the severe risk that somebody may take the designs and manufacture them *in advance* of me fulfilling my committment to the backers of the campaign.
i *specifically state* - very very clearly - right there on the crowdfunding campaign page - that this is why i will not be IMMEDIATELY releasing the EOMA68-A20 CAD designs.
and i *specifically state* that *everything else* is made available in advance.
this fits closely with the EOMA68 strategy from an engineering perspective, because the "computer" bit is not something that you should be manufacturing in small volumes anyway: the whole point is that if people group together to do "bulk buys" of EOMA68-XXX computing modules, everybody benefits from mass-volume bulk volume pricing whilst being at liberty to design and manufacture much simpler "Housings" using only 2-layer boards.
On the other hand, the availability of boards that have components that work well with free software have never been a problem, there's not discussion to have here.
For laptops, we only had minor annoyances,?like Wi-Fi chips that require proprietary firmwares,
proprietary firmware for WIFI is a bit more than a "minor" annoyance, paul!
That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that there are easy and nearly painless ways to solve these problems, by using external ath9k_htc USB dongles.
you're aware that my sponsor, chris from thinkpenguin, was responsible for bringing us the ath9k_htc libre firmware? that chris's business model is founded around exactly the same ethical committment to libre principles as are behind the EOMA68 initiative is a big, big clue :)
no, paul, what you're missing here is that there's an *active committment* to tackling the pain, cost burden and inconvenience that proprietary software (and hardware) causes.
Well, I have been talking about the freedom situation in digital technology all along, not commitment. I do agree that commitment such as the one displayed with your project is a rare thing.
i'm prepared to prioritise libre principles over profit maximising, that's all there is to it. the interesting side-effect of that is that i've had to get *really* creative about how to fulfil the goal [of bringing libre principles to mass-volume products].
And that is indeed groundbreaking (even though projects like the Novena were here before),
you _are_ aware that the EOMA68 initiative _pre-dates_ the Novena, right? :)
because that kind of intent is clearly lacking from e.g. companies producing Chromebooks, so it rather feels like we got lucky (or that people inside these companies care a lot, but it doesn't reflect in the company's PR).
yeah. i think now that chromebooks are out of the "R&D" phase (where they began solely as a google initiative) and are now seen as an actual profitable thing to "copy", we now see third party companies independently designing chromebooks *without* the assistance or involvement of google-sponsored engineering...
... and that's where you end up with the cost-cutting exercises such as "using SD/MMC soldered-down SIP modules onto the main PCB which require proprietary firmware"
now, here's where it gets interesting, because if you create an EOMA68 chrome OS computer card, libre compliance is pretty much a "hard requirement"... because if it's not, chances are quite high that that EOMA68 ChromeOS Card *won't work* in Housings that require proprietary firmware.
why is that?
it's because you can't predict what peripherals future Housings will have... so you have to always upgrade the OS on the Computer Card (so that it's always compatible with the latest and greatest Housings and any newer peripherals that might be in them).... now you have to include *all* the bits of firmware that you can possibly get your hands on, and if those are non-free proprietary WIFI firmware blobs, now it gets really complicated. but if they're *libre* firmware, it's a hell of a lot easier.
i really must put this as an "advisory" on the EOMA68 standard.... another thing for the TODO list...
Commitment is important for the long run, so I'm really glad you're around. We can't just rely on sheer luck to get devices that do well with free software from mainstream manufacturers, even though we've had good luck a great number of times already (and bad luck an astonishingly greater number of times, too).
yyyeah... i learned recently that the latest chromebooks have integrated WIFI (with proprietary firmware... argh) whereas previously they had WIFI-as-a-USB-based-module-over-a-four-wire-cable). cost-cutting exercises are clearly beginning to creep into chromebook designs.... oops.
.... it's a vicious self-sustaining cycle that has to be broken by an *active* committment.
Definitely, that's a (if not the only) reliable (but harder and perhaps more dangerous) way to achieve progress for freedom in digital technology. Going with luck has worked well in some areas (again, ARM Chromebooks), but we knows when our luck will turn.
yeahyeah. it's why "businesses" (corporations) will never be trusted to deliver (even at their own long-term expense), because they have to prioritise "profit" above all else. USB-based WIFI dongles ($3) are *always* going to be more expensive than soldered-down SD/MMC-based SIP "modules" ($1.50)...
Even though this conversation may have taken a harsh tone at times and places, I do believe we share the same views and only disagree on details (which fill up most of our discussions here). I hope this is clear and this discussion doesn't come across as a strong attack against what you're doing!
not at all. it's through these kinds of conversations that i'll be able to clarify what the hell it is that i've been up to for five years.
l.
Hi,
Le lundi 12 septembre 2016 à 06:19 +0100, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton a écrit :
On Sun, Sep 11, 2016 at 2:04 PM, Paul Kocialkowski contact@paulk.fr wrote:
Le samedi 10 septembre 2016 à 20:38 +0100, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton a écrit :
I disagree. There is simply nothing you can compare this project to.
We are achieving results that can't be demonstrated via any other means. If we could get here some other way at a lower cost with the same long term impact I would have gone that route.
See what Olimex has been doing for years then.
you're aware that olimex operates as a criminal cartel,
This is a very strong accusation and I definitely do not share that perspective, at all.
it dates back several years. tsvetan's reaction when i brought this up on the gpl-violations mailing list was to try to belittle me (in front of 20,000 people) as a way to dodge the question. "what are you talking about, idiot, you've totally failed to even bother to release any product, what a total waster you are, har har, go away little loser i don't have to answer your question because you are such a failure" was the general gist of his response.
Someone brought up the EOMA68 at the Olimex forums and it is clear from that discussion alone that there is a lot of bad blood between you two: https://www.olimex.com/forum/index.php?topic=4383.msg18469
Frankly, I'm not interested in those kinds of ego clashes and speculated bad intentions. I know you both have made contributions to freedom in digital technology, that I appreciate. This is what I find to matter the most.
I am not sure Olimex's boards have shipped with Allwinner's GPL-violating software preinstalled (some of them do not come with NAND). It is regrettable if they did and it would have been much better to avoid that.
I think that offering the GPL-violating software for download separately would have been a lesser evil (even though not quite acceptable). Perhaps this is what they did, perhaps not.
Either way, I do not need to have an umbrella statement about Olimex as a company. Their products helped the freedom in digital technology front and I'm grateful for that. Perhaps they also did bad things, such as promoting and distributing GPL-violating binaries. But so do a great number of other companies that are also doing good on some aspects and much less on others. This is the case of Google, IBM and many other.
I think such general considerations are only relevants to evaluate whether an individual or a company is dedicated to helping us solve digital technology freedom issues, or is only doing it sporadically. In that case, you may conclude that Olimex falls in the latter position. I'm personally not quite sure about it, but I do agree that shipping Allwinner's GPL-violating software is a drawback in that regard. However, as I've mentioned before, I know first hand that Olimex has been supportive of the linux-sunxi community (when many, many other Allwinner board vendors barely acknowledges it).
from shipping GPL-violating A10 bootloaders and kernels provided by Allwinner, back around 2011/2012?
Olimex has always been about producing community-friendly boards, not about the software. Nevertheless, Olimex has been involved with the linux-sunxi community from the early days
paul: you may not be aware that the linux-sunxi community formed around the arm-netbook mailing list and resources. the people using the resources that i set up decided to *create* the sunxi mailing list and wiki and to form their own community.
I have to admit that had skipped my mind when writing those previous emails. I do recall that linux-sunxi was initially started on the arm-netbook mailing list. And indeed, I also recall seeing your name around for a long time.
and has always been very supportive, by providing developers with hardware to work on, taking part in the community, etc.
that doesn't change the fact that the very early boards with the A10 processor were shipped by default with allwinner's original GPL-violating bootloader, u-boot and linux kernel. now, the GPL is very very clear: on request you must supply the *EXACT* source and *EXACT* tools used to compile the *EXACT* binaries that were shipped.
That's making an umbrella statement about Olimex, which I don't think is very relevant. There's good and there's bad there.
if you can't do that, you MUST cease and desist distribution. if you do not cease and desist distribution, you are no longer in compliance with the license. if you are no longer in compliance with the license but CONTINUE to distribute GPL code (without a license), *that* is criminal infringement.
and if a company is in criminal infringement of copyright law, the company is no longer operating as a company but is in fact an organised crime syndicate: a criminal cartel.
I have to say, this sounds over-exaggerated to me. In French, the word "crime" only refers to the most serious offenses. But Wikipedia apparently states that crime is not so precisely defined in English. Oh well.
Still, I don't really see a need for pointing fingers this way. Stating that the distribute GPL-violating software is the informative thing to do. I don't see the point of getting personal about the company with harsh considerations (however technically correct these considerations may be). It also feels like an attempt to discredit Olimex, to be honest. I believe all parties would be better of without that kind of heat, by staying factual and informative.
Also, let's not forget that Allwinner's the culprit for all this mess in the first place. Olimex may has been a distributor of it, which may be the same from the copyright law's standpoint, but I think it makes a big difference. You may, of course, disagree with these personal views.
Also, when they started with Allwinner, mainline software wasn't an option.
that's no excuse, paul.
you're aware that it was me who released the very first allwinner u-boot and linux kernel sources, for the a10? i obtained them from allwinner and immediately made them available on git.rhombus-tech.net. tom cubie, who was an allwinner employee at the time, bought some Mele A1000s and, in a very enterprising spirit, sold them as $50 developer boards from his aliexpress account. from there he went on to develop his own company, made the first cubieboard and began selling it.
Then you were, in fact, in the same position of distributing GPL-violating binaries. Unless you stripped them off off that release?
I think this makes you understand the kind of tricky position this leads to. People need those GPL-violating binaries (for some of them, for direct use, for others, to do reverse engineering), so I wouldn't send the first stone to the distributor, but to the company that caused the problem in the first place.
So nobody wants to distribute them, but people need them. I'm really not sure what the right thing to do here. And frankly, if everyone had stayed away from it with a ten-feet-pole, we wouldn't be here today.
Better yet, the latest one (A64) was designed with KiCad, so those design sources can even be handled with free software! This is an unprecedented achievement that even the EOMA68 project has not reached (yet).
there's a reason for that: i'm not an electronics engineer (and KiCAD simply wasn't ready for use). five years ago i asked on the arm-netbook mailing list if anybody would like to help out, in return for profit-sharing in the end result. due to some "deliberate" misunderstandings (which are still going around the internet) various people saw my offer as a "demand" instead of what it genuinely was: an offer to share in the profits. i won't go into details.
You don't need to. Those are past stories, I'm rather interested in the state of things as they are now.
so, i began to try to use KiCAD myself (see http://git.rhombus-tech.net/?p=eoma.git).%C2%A0%C2%A0it didn't go very well. there were some severe bugs in KiCAD (that have still yet to be fixed) that make using KiCAD for such large BGA ICs a near impossibility: i had to hand-edit the library parts. when it came to actually doing the PCBs the lack of professional-level features met head-long with my lack of knowledge of electronics CAD design and i began to realise very very quickly that i was completely out of my depth.
Of course, I'm not surprised. And I know that Olimex was only able to use KiCad for such a complex project at the cost of lots of efforts, bugreports, etc. But I'm really glad that they did and this is the kind of extra step that makes me believe Olimex and Tsvetan are not only there to collect money but actually want to push things forward on the freedom-in-technology front.
rather than end up spending time (and money) doing iterative PCB design (which could be a bottomless pit) i made a number of other efforts to invite other people to profit-share in the planned project scope, but in the end these also fell through and i had to teach myself electronics CAD design. with no experience in this field i was forced into the position of first paying people to do CAD designs for me, and then later when there wasn't a financial budget available, learning and using the professional CAD software that we'd paid those people to develop the designs in. now, EOMA68 succeeds in the engineering arena by making it simpler for people to update sophisticated products at a fraction of the cost of other "monolithic" designs. a "monolithic" design is typically a minimum of a 4-layer PCB to cover the SoC and the DDR3 RAM. if there's a 64-bit RAM path you are usually looking at a 6-layer or 8-layer PCB. that's *expensive* territory: $700 for QTY 5 PCBs, $400 for components, and $600 for assembly. make a single mistake and it's another $1800 and another 4-6 weeks turnaround.
and at the end of all that effort, you're "on the clock" as to the usefulness of the product, because the key part - the processor - is going to be superceded very very quickly. with specialist vendor-lockin on the various interfaces you're even *more* on the hook, especially if the fabless semi company doing the SoC doesn't "grok" libre principles and releases GPL-violating android-only binaries.
This is interesting background (I'm quite familiar with it, but others may not be, so it'll probably help them realize what a task designing that kind of circuit board can be). Thanks for sharing it.
now, what if there were "modules" which you knew complied to a simple interface that you could just get off-the-shelf, even from Best Buy or Walmart, and could make a simply 2-layer PCB around it? that would be amazing, wouldn't it?
I'm not sure this would solve the multi-layer requirement. Also, a standard interface does have drawback, as it limits the possible number of interfaces exported by the SoC board.
what would be even better would be if there were plenty of example schematics and PCB designs around that you could work from, that were simple 2-layer PCBs that you could pay china or eastern european companies to make with a 48-hour turnaround at the fraction of the cost of 4+ layer PCBs? it would be *even better* if those reference designs were available as gEDA or KiCAD designs, wouldn't it?
Yeah, definitely. We're still a long way from that being a reality comparable to what it is with software, but we're getting there :)
so this is why i started that KiCAD-based set of designs back in 2011... unfortunately i haven't had time to come back and revisit them. i understand from joe micha that KiCAD has a "Gerber Import" feature, so it *should* be possible to import (and recreate) KiCAD GPL compliant sources from pretty much any proprietary CAD package, with quite a bit of work. i hear also that there are some proprietary importers... it's complicated, hazardous, but doable.
I wouldn't expect those kinds of automatic imports to be 100% reliable, especially for complex designs though. But it's great that it's there.
all of these things i haven't got time to do immediately, myself, but it is definitely part of the vision - it always was. i've not been talking much online about these things because i've had to focus instead on "getting it done". bringing the project out of that critical "vapourware" barrier... but sticking to
That's great to hear!
Get https://github.com/OLIMEX/OLINUXINO/tree/master/HARDWARE/A64-OLinuXino/A 64-O linuXino_Rev_A and open it up with KiCad if you wish to see for yourself!
when the A64 doesn't require a proprietary bootloader, i'll start the evaluation process again. however given that the A64 is a 40nm IC and the Cortex A53 is 15% more power-hungry performance-watt-wise than a Cortex A7 *and* it's limited to 2GB RAM as a hard limit, i'm much more inclined to go with a quad-core Cortex A7 instead, or an 8-core 28nm (or both).
Whatever suits you best! But why stick to Allwinner platforms? Rockchip platforms such as RK3288 (and possibly the upcoming RK3399) do just as well in terms of software freedom. I guess you've also considered the i.MX6. GPU support is being reviewed upstream as we speak. Tegra K1 is also really nice, but perhaps more power-hungry. Is this really an issue for a non-mobile device though?
currently "in the slot" for evaluation is the Samsung/Nexell S5P6818 and the Allwinner R40. both of those are an improvement over the A64. the S5P6818 is a 28nm octa-core A53 so is power-equivalent to the R40 (40-28nm is a 2x power improvement, but it's double the number of cores so roughly back up to the same power usage). we don't yet know what geometry the R40 is, but if we assume it's 40nm then it will be at least 15% more power-efficient than the A64.
By the way, I'd be very interested in your notes and conclusions when evaluating platforms!
basically it's highly likely that i'll skip the A64 entirely.
Well, I guess it depends on your timeline. Perhaps free software support won't be ready in time for the next generation of your products. Or maybe it's not that interesting on the technical side either.
I think his contribution to freedom in digital technology has been solid and significant. The devices he's producing show as much.
given that he's released the designs of a number of products - libre-licensed full SCH and PCB files which i wasn't aware of before - i have to agree with you. but be under absolutely no illusion that it's all "roses". he's prepared to compromise on ethics (because he doesn't understand their importance - as in he *genuinely* doesn't understand it). he'd rather take your money.
I hear you.
also, the A64's processor - which tsvetan is using for the olimex laptop - requires a proprietary early-bootloader. in fact, the first A64 SDK that came out was an absolute mess, comprising several GPL violations in both the early-bootloader, the u-boot source *and* the linux kernel. the SDK was even exclusively distributed over a chinese illegal filesharing network (this is an "official" released SDK from allwinner!)
Of course, we all know that, but that's how you move forward! We can't just wait for the situation to be magically resolved before considering producing hardware with it, and staying away from it with a teen-feet-pole before.
true.
Simply because no change will ensue of that. Olimex has the ability to create boards early- on, that will encourage the community to work on this chip, and also create leverage with Allwinner.
ok. right. are you familiar with the story behind the Allwinner R8 "NextThingCo" "CHIP" computer? that was going to be a GPL-violating product until some people on the crowd-funding campaign pointed out that it would be a bit of a problem for a USA-based company to be importing copyright-violating product.
Hehe, yeah I'm aware of it.
so, NextThingCo had a rather urgent meeting with Allwinner (one of the team worked for them so knew who to call), and basically "put their foot down". they said, in effect, "give us the source, or you don't get the order. oh... and we have 50,000 orders".
end result? allwinner's R-Series team is now scrambling to get fully GPL-compliant source code out the door (and i am arranging to go over to the main office in Zhuhai in a few days time to help them out).
I didn't know about those details. I'm really glad you're helping with this, too.
*THIS* is what both Pine64 and Tsvetan *SHOULD* have done with the A64. they should have said, "give us the source, or you don't get our money". it's only 200 lines of code in this case: libdram is mostly identical in all versions, there's one main function (the DDR3 initialisation).
because they *didn't* put their foot down when it mattered, the sunxi community is now forced to reverse-engineer libdram.
That's an interesting perspective. It would be interesting to bring it up with those companies to see what they have tried or why they didn't try to take that stand.
these kinds of compromises when it matters are *VITAL* lost opportunities....
I would tend to agree with you on this one. Hardware manufacturers have leverage in those situations, so it's sad that they don't use it.
all because people like Tsvetan and the team at Pine64 prefer to take your money.
There's probably a wide range of possible explanations for this. It's not certain that these companies' volumes matter. But either way, I'd be interested in starting that discussion to see where each actor stands on this.
So it's really not about what the situation is right now, but about what it can possibly become. Allwinner chips have *always* been a mess to deal with at first, but efforts from companies like Olimex and the community made it possible to have the kind of support we know today for chips like the A20.
paul, i reiterate here: the sunxi community exists because of my early efforts :) i *am* aware of the sunxi community's work since then: i've been an indirect contributor myself (i did the reverse-engineering of USB-FEL that allowed the sunxi-tools fel-boot program to be completed - i used usbmon from outside of a qemu session running LIVESUIT.EXE to sniff the usb traffic).
Great to hear and sorry for implying it was not the case.
Also bear in mind that you were able to get the EOMA68 together, with that level of free software support, in part thanks to people like Tsvetan who put together (free hardware) boards for the community to work on those chips and supported their efforts early on, when the situation is indeed a mess.
this isn't historically accurate: back in 2010, 2011 it was my first release of the A10 u-boot and kernel source, and the rhombus-tech wiki, arm-netbook mailing list and irc channel, using the Mele A1000 and then tom cubie's cubieboards that allowed the sunxi community to first form: tsvetan's boards came out at least a year later (i think) than the first cubieboard. *later* boards - around... probably something like.... 2012: *then* yes, you are correct.
Same here, sorry for not connecting the dots earlier. I'm now under no impression that you just waited idle and got your product out after others did the work for you.
over a considerable period of time, pine64 and the sunxi community worked to eliminate as many of those GPL violations as they could, but Allwinner insisted on keeping the early-bootloader proprietary.
so at present the A64 is classified as a "non-libre" processor. that it's the basis of the olimex laptop tells you everything you need to know.
Again, you're looking at the situation right now, which indeed matches what you describe. However, I think Olimex sees a lot of potential in A64 and so do I. Only time will tell whether it was a dead-end or not.
now, whilst tsevtan is making money selling you hardware that requires non-free components to operate basic functions, i've put my foot down and said NO, i will NOT sell GPL-violating product. i don't care if that means it's harder to deliver ethical products, i'll deal with that on an ongoing basis, but here's the thing: it means i've established a reputation for setting some ethical rules *AND STUCK TO THEM*.
Frankly, I don't care that a device doesn't work with free software right now if it has potential to be liberated eventually
this is an extremely exhausting approach that burdens the entire sunxi community with a hell of a lot of unpaid work.... and will result in each and every processor being *years* behind. if it takes 2 years to complete the reverse-engineering, that's an *entire generation* behind! look at how long it took to get the full source together for the A20! in the meantime the A33, A31, A83 *and* the A64 came out!
It may not be the most efficient strategy, but I'm saying that it's something. The situation is much worse on a number of other platforms, where we have no friendly circuit board manufacturer at all.
as a community we simply cannot be expected to shoulder the burden of responsibility for clearing up Allwinner's mess, only to be "rewarded" with having to tolerate being at least *TWO YEARS* behind the times in terms of what processors are available for us to use in libre projects! that's completely insane!
no. i REJECT that approach.
Again, I'm not saying it's optimal and good as it is. But it's something and has lead to results (that were, indeed delayed by years due to the technical burden that Allwinner induced by requiring the community to do reverse engineering). But considering the size of the task, I think the community has done an amazing job here.
But of course, Olimex and you are not in the same position.
it's much more than that. i'm first and foremost a software libre engineer and advocate. i place libre principles FIRST. i do NOT place "making money" first and foremost. i choose NOT to compromise on software freedom.
and i also choose to FIND WAYS to GET software freedom and to create an ethical business.
so it's not that we are not "in the same position", it's that we operate *FROM* totally different positions. Tsvetan (and pine64, and numerous china-based OEMs) operate from the basis of "money first, software freedom second".
Again, I'm not sure I fully share your stand on Olimex, but I sure am glad to see read this about the way you're conducting your effort. I am grateful there are people like you around.
I agree that you went steps further than most before, but this is incremental improvement, not something truly new and groundbreaking compared to what existed before.
hmmm, an interesting perspective, which i feel may be based on not being aware of the sheer overwhelming number of issues being tackled (all at once).
yes it's "incremental improvement" but it's a MASSIVE stack of MULTIPLE "incremental improvements", all done at once.
From what I can see, the actual improvements (again, from the digital technology side of things, so I'm not including the mechanical design) come down to not including a Wi-Fi chip that requires proprietary software in a laptop design, which is what had been lacking from the ARM Chromebooks. If you see anything else, please state it clearly.
there's too much to cover, paul. i'm not saying that lightly: the fact that the ecocomputing whitepaper is seventeen *thousand* words long is testament to that. it's not even specifically about the actual *hardware*: the actual hardware specs is just a "response" (if you will) to the systemic approach that i've taken, after doing an extremely comprehensive analysis of the entire computing industry. if you start with the whitepaper you'll begin to get a feel for what EOMA68 is really about. http://rhombus-tech.net/whitepapers/ecocomputing_07sep2015/
That's probably a fascinating read, but you're again talking about an approach here, not technical differences that matter from the perspective of freedom in technology, about the product you're releasing now. This is the specific aspect I wanted to highlight and get feedback on, not your general attitude.
the crowdfunding campaign was - is - just the beginning of emerging from an extremely intense period of work, learning an entirely new field (hardware design) in order to be in a position to influence an entire industry and turn it away from the entropic field of "proprietary software / hardware because it's cheaper". reality is: it *isn't* cheaper (long-term).
I realize that, I have actually been following your work from a distance for some time and I'm glad it finally got concrete.
There are also rare occurences in your design, meaning that only few products before (such as the ARM Chromebooks or the Novena) had reached that level of support, such as: using a SoC that has few freedom flaws (GPU), having a free software keyboard controller. We could also add free hardware design there (but I'm still a bit confused about what the situation actually is and didn't take the time to look it up properly).
dr stallman and i have been talking about this (privately). the terms "open hardware", "open source hardware" and "libre hardware" are *all* very misleading, because "hardware" could mean *anything*. it could be spoons, it could be heavy machinery, it could be casework, it could be PCBs, it could be ASICs (actual silicon ICs).
so the whole episode (this thread) comes back to all of us (as a community) using a rather thoroughly ambiguous term. if we want to be clear, we should be using the words "libre PCB designs", "libre casework designs" and so on - *not* "libre hardware". it's way too general.
I believe the PCB design is the source form of the technology. Printed circuit boards are the product form and the technology itself can be referred to as "circuit boards". Just like software (form of technology) has source code (source form) and binaries (product form). We can distinguish that from Integrated chips, another aspects of digital technology.
I will be (and have been) using this specific terminology. I rarely talk about "free hardware" in general (and even less so about "open hardware'. However, this confusion is very common, so it's good to bring it up.
If you feel like I'm missing something substantial, please let me know.
you're missing an entire five years of work - the entire rhombus-tech initiative - which has run in parallel in the background side-by-side with the sunxi community efforts. i've stayed off of the sunxi resources because they're using nonfree infrastructure. sunxi mailing list: runs off the non-free google groups. sunxi git repositories: runs off the non-free github repositories. the key developers know me (because they were originally members of the arm-netbook mailing list), and we do occasionally talk (in private email) - but most people who use the sunxi mailing list don't even know that i exist.
Again, these are not the aspects I'm commenting about.
*nobody* has tried to do that before. not Dell, not Olimex, not IBM
- *nobody*.
for example you compare the EOMA68 Housing to the olimex laptop. the olimex laptop's casework is proprietary (the EOMA68 Housing's is GPLv3+ libre-licensed). so automatically you can see that it's nowhere near being a legitimate comparison.
Again, my point is about digital technology here, not mechanical parts.
i'm lost, sorry. i don't quite follow what the term "digital technology" refers to, but you use the term again below so i think i might have been able to deduce what you mean from context... correct me if i'm wrong.
Digital technology refers to digital electronic technology, which includes software, hardware configuration, circuit boards and integrated circuits.
Case design and mechanical parts don't fall into that scope.
The issue is your looking at one thing. A few specs. It's not the specs? that matter. It's the standard, it's the modularization, it's the? response and cooperation we are getting already as a result of our? actions here, etc. Intel and AMD are not going to cooperate and building? off of other companies products (higher up the chain) is not a reliable? long term solution.
Again, I don't see how modularization changes anything here.
you can't focus on just the one aspect and conclude that "it's not significant". bear in mind that this has been a 5 year project, where i've had 15 years of working near-exclusively with software libre, looking at the endemic and systemic problems and coming up with a *long-term* strategy to tackle *all* of the issues associated with the consequences of proprietary computing... *all at once*.
modularisation (and having open standards despite what the wikipedia-page-that's-already-scheduled-for-deletion would have you believe) is one - *one* - critical - *critical* part of that strategy.
Again, everything you can do with modularization you could do by producing new versions of boards.
no, you can't. read the ecocomputing whitepaper [and scan back up several paragraphs]
I probably will then, I find the subject quite interesting anyway.
It solves the environmental problem and is convenient to users, but has little to do with freedom in digital technology.
you're correct here (and this is why i said that you're missing the point by focussing exclusively on *one* aspect).
Well, what I asked was what I was missing about digital technology freedom aspects, not what other aspects I was missing. I'm well aware that your project comes with a much broader approach, that you have described a bit already throughout this conversation.
so if you *only* focus on the modularity, you'll be completely lost and won't understand.
what is needed is to have modularity... *AND* commit to software libre ethical principles. making this clear is extremely hard to do. even the fact that i've just added a DRM section (it's banned) to the EOMA68 standard *still* doesn't really get the full message across.
If you have actual specific point to counter those points (other than vague statements like "part of a strategy"), I'd be happy to react to them.
it's complicated, paul, and i'll be absolutely honest with you: i'm *working out* how to get it across, what i'm doing and why. *five years* and i still haven't been able to put what i'm doing into a simple clear statement... because of the sheer overwhelming depth and scale of what i'm attempting to do. it's so ambitious and audacious that when i start explain it, many people react with total disbelief, calling me "arrogant", "deluded" and many many other things which goes a long, long way to explaining the rather vehement reactions that you will see evidence of (if you look carefully enough).
so if you can promise *not* to react in the same way, i'll make an effort to explain. deal?
Again, I think you're misunderstand what I'm asking here. I'm not asking about the approach (but feel free to provide a comprehensive introduction to it, I feel it is quite interesting). I'm talking about the specific level of support of the products you're releasing now in regard to freedom in digital technology.
Also, I can guess how vast your effort is and how much work it represents. This most certainly naturally explains why it took such a long time to actually get something concrete produced from all these ideas.
And frankly, I'm not one to make personal attacks, so I don't think you have to fear that sort of reaction from me :)
Hardware availability has never been the problem.
libre hardware availability has *always* been a problem. entropy guarantees that it always will. you actually have to make a concerted continuous effort to push back against the corner-cost-cutting of the mass-volume industry.
So if we're talking about free hardware projects, then I'll agree that the situation hasn't been that great. As far as I know, only Olimex, Novena and a few others have been producing free hardware computers that work well with free software.
But again, I'm still confused about the hardware freedom situation of your device. The most meaningful part is, of course, the EOMA68 board with the A20, not the carriers (even though having them as free hardware is very nice).
as i have the right (under the GPL) to release the CAD designs when i actually ship, that's what i'll be doing. if i release the designs *right now*, there's the severe risk that somebody may take the designs and manufacture them *in advance* of me fulfilling my committment to the backers of the campaign.
Of course, you don't have to do anything until your products go live anyway!
i *specifically state* - very very clearly - right there on the crowdfunding campaign page - that this is why i will not be IMMEDIATELY releasing the EOMA68-A20 CAD designs.
and i *specifically state* that *everything else* is made available in advance.
this fits closely with the EOMA68 strategy from an engineering perspective, because the "computer" bit is not something that you should be manufacturing in small volumes anyway: the whole point is that if people group together to do "bulk buys" of EOMA68-XXX computing modules, everybody benefits from mass-volume bulk volume pricing whilst being at liberty to design and manufacture much simpler "Housings" using only 2-layer boards.
Okay.
On the other hand, the availability of boards that have components that work well with free software have never been a problem, there's not discussion to have here.
For laptops, we only had minor annoyances,?like Wi-Fi chips that require proprietary firmwares,
proprietary firmware for WIFI is a bit more than a "minor" annoyance, paul!
That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that there are easy and nearly painless ways to solve these problems, by using external ath9k_htc USB dongles.
you're aware that my sponsor, chris from thinkpenguin, was responsible for bringing us the ath9k_htc libre firmware? that chris's business model is founded around exactly the same ethical committment to libre principles as are behind the EOMA68 initiative is a big, big clue :)
Yes, I am well aware! Such a great thing to have. It has severely alleviated the pain associated with Wi-Fi.
no, paul, what you're missing here is that there's an *active committment* to tackling the pain, cost burden and inconvenience that proprietary software (and hardware) causes.
Well, I have been talking about the freedom situation in digital technology all along, not commitment. I do agree that commitment such as the one displayed with your project is a rare thing.
i'm prepared to prioritise libre principles over profit maximising, that's all there is to it. the interesting side-effect of that is that i've had to get *really* creative about how to fulfil the goal [of bringing libre principles to mass-volume products].
And that is indeed groundbreaking (even though projects like the Novena were here before),
you _are_ aware that the EOMA68 initiative _pre-dates_ the Novena, right? :)
True, they just got it shipping faster (Bunnie is quite used to EE and the Chinese circuit-board-making ecosystem, so that must have been a great help).
because that kind of intent is clearly lacking from e.g. companies producing Chromebooks, so it rather feels like we got lucky (or that people inside these companies care a lot, but it doesn't reflect in the company's PR).
yeah. i think now that chromebooks are out of the "R&D" phase (where they began solely as a google initiative) and are now seen as an actual profitable thing to "copy", we now see third party companies independently designing chromebooks *without* the assistance or involvement of google-sponsored engineering...
Really? I haven't seen any such example, and I'm not sure that Google will allow any company to do this under the ChromeOS brand name. But I'm all ears for details :)
... and that's where you end up with the cost-cutting exercises such as "using SD/MMC soldered-down SIP modules onto the main PCB which require proprietary firmware"
Well, they have been using eMMC modules on ARM devices because most of them don't have SATA or PCI-e interfaces. But I seem to recall that earlier x86 Chromebooks did use SATA disks. This is anyway a very common practice on those kinds of devices. And any MMC card (soldered or not), just like any USB storage key, comes with a proprietary firmware.
now, here's where it gets interesting, because if you create an EOMA68 chrome OS computer card, libre compliance is pretty much a "hard requirement"... because if it's not, chances are quite high that that EOMA68 ChromeOS Card *won't work* in Housings that require proprietary firmware.
why is that?
it's because you can't predict what peripherals future Housings will have... so you have to always upgrade the OS on the Computer Card (so that it's always compatible with the latest and greatest Housings and any newer peripherals that might be in them).... now you have to include *all* the bits of firmware that you can possibly get your hands on, and if those are non-free proprietary WIFI firmware blobs, now it gets really complicated. but if they're *libre* firmware, it's a hell of a lot easier.
From a technical perspective, I don't think this has been a drawback for ChromeOS devices. And they're continuously updating the system, too.
i really must put this as an "advisory" on the EOMA68 standard.... another thing for the TODO list...
Commitment is important for the long run, so I'm really glad you're around. We can't just rely on sheer luck to get devices that do well with free software from mainstream manufacturers, even though we've had good luck a great number of times already (and bad luck an astonishingly greater number of times, too).
yyyeah... i learned recently that the latest chromebooks have integrated WIFI (with proprietary firmware... argh) whereas previously they had WIFI-as-a-USB-based-module-over-a-four-wire-cable). cost-cutting exercises are clearly beginning to creep into chromebook designs.... oops.
Again, not sure it's that. SDIO Wi-Fi modules have been really common all along. And either way, it would be hard to replace them as everything's soldered together. As long as we can use an external Wi-Fi dongle that runs with a free firmware, I think we're good. This is why I don't focus on the Wi-Fi part that much. Other aspects such as GPU support are a clearly much bigger task to tackle.
.... it's a vicious self-sustaining cycle that has to be broken by an *active* committment.
Definitely, that's a (if not the only) reliable (but harder and perhaps more dangerous) way to achieve progress for freedom in digital technology. Going with luck has worked well in some areas (again, ARM Chromebooks), but we knows when our luck will turn.
yeahyeah. it's why "businesses" (corporations) will never be trusted to deliver (even at their own long-term expense), because they have to prioritise "profit" above all else. USB-based WIFI dongles ($3) are *always* going to be more expensive than soldered-down SD/MMC-based SIP "modules" ($1.50)...
Either way, I agree we can't expect them to always make the choices that will benefit freedom first.
Even though this conversation may have taken a harsh tone at times and places, I do believe we share the same views and only disagree on details (which fill up most of our discussions here). I hope this is clear and this discussion doesn't come across as a strong attack against what you're doing!
not at all. it's through these kinds of conversations that i'll be able to clarify what the hell it is that i've been up to for five years.
Glad that we're good on that :) And yeah, I guess having to explain things makes it a lot easier to present them clearly afterward.
Cheers,
arm-netbook@lists.phcomp.co.uk
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Elena ``of Valhalla'' -
Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton -
Paul Kocialkowski