Re: [libreplanet-discuss] What is ThinkPenguin?

[Patrick]

On 2016-05-27 07:02 AM, Patrick wrote:

Hi Chris

 Your getting beat up on the libreplanet-discuss list. Maybe you
should subscribe and post-Patrick

I'm not surprised. :(

Feel free to forward this:

It's easy to complain and much harder to fix the problems at hand. I've been working on these issues longer than probably anybody else and there are good reasons we didn't focus on a 100% (or near-100%) free laptop. It's because coreboot is an expensive and not a good solution to the problem. I looked into this back in 2009 and concluded and still believe its a non-trivial and expensive task to port from one system to another and an even more expensive task to port from one generation to another. It also doesn't work long term nor does it work short term if we start talking large numbers of people. The models required to refurbish dry up before its a financially break-even situation. You can point to examples and say "but, X is doing it". No. That's not the case at all. X is either lying or shipping small quantities and those models are drying up- and they're running into issues bringing out newer generation models.

LibreBoot'd laptops work just great for a small number of people and I encourage people whom really need such systems to go that route. The majority however need to take baby steps and we still have a lot of work to do to bring about a good solid workable solution. I also don't think that a completely free solution is a good reason to stop helping people off of less free solutions. If it was then we should stop shipping operating systems like Trisquel and Parabola GNU/Linux-libre for X86. We *could* get these systems running on ARM. It might be ridiculously expensive and unfordable, but none-the-less. We need to take small sane steps and different approaches for different segments of users to have the maximum positive impact.

Hope is not completely lost and we're working on solving this problem. We have been for years now, but it took several years to get to this point. A solution that'll work for the masses still is a ways away for technical reasons. We'll be able to ship a good solution for more technical freedom-lovers shortly provided there are enough people prepared to put there money where there mouth is.

Up to this point the best thing to do from a resources stand point was focus on smaller, but also difficult issues to solve. Like free'ing wifi chips, free'ing routers, and just generally making available a selection of freedom-friendly hardware such that more users could adopt free software more easily.

Patience is a virtue that it would be nice if more people picked up.

Note: I don't have the time to respond to libreplanet-disscuss mailing list. I've got way too much work to do on the very problems people are complaining about. If you want to contact me off-list feel free.

 -------- Forwarded Message J--------

         SUBJECT:
         Re: [libreplanet-discuss] What is ThinkPenguin?

         DATE:
         Thu, 26 May 2016 23:08:12 -0400

         FROM:
         Patrick <patrick@spellingbeewinnars.org>

         TO:
         libreplanet-discuss <libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org>

Chris is on the Trisquel list all the time helping others. Isn't this
just silly in-fighting? Is it worth criticizing people who sell
computers with closed source firmware when there is so very little to
choose from otherwise?

I love GPL but I hate the snobbery. Why not spend time promoting the
good ?