Subject: [libreplanet-discuss] C.H.I.P. $9 computer respects your freedom, maybe?
Today, the C.H.I.P. $9 single-board computer was released to the public for pre-order.
A page on the FSF's website categorizes this board under "boards with serious flaws (for respecting your freedom)." It claims that the GPU, VPU, and WiFi chip require non-free code or binary blobs to work. This is common, and is even worse for the other single-board computer that recently made headlines, the Raspberry Pi Zero.
https://www.fsf.org/resources/hw/single-board-computers
I had a short conversation with the creators of the C.H.I.P. on Twitter, and they state that contrary to the FSF's information, it will _not_ require binary blobs and will be "fully open source, both hardware and software." They also imply that the information about the C.H.I.P. on the FSF website is outdated.
https://twitter.com/nextthingco/status/671458976370843648
I think it's entirely possible that their social media person is making a mistake. But if not, this would be a wonderful thing -- a $9 computer that Respects Your Freedom! If that's the case we should get the FSF website updated ASAP and promote this hardware to friends, schools, etc.
Does anyone have any more details about this hardware, and whether it is as "open source" (and hopefully freedom-respecting) as its twitter account claims it to be?