[Discuss] EOMA68 Libre Hardware Standard and Libre Software project, currently crowd-funding (deadline expires 26th aug 2016)

[Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton]

---
crowd-funded eco-conscious hardware: https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68


On Wed, Aug 24, 2016 at 6:05 PM, Matt Maier <blueback09 at gmail.com> wrote:
> But that's not a bad thing, it's just a trade-off. Not only is hardware
> already inherently libre itself, it makes more sense to favor the open
> source approach of emphasizing growth. This is because of the inherent cost
> of working with hardware. Software is so cheap because it gets economies of
> scale from the vast amount of networks, processors, and memory sitting idle.
> Hardware only gets cheap when it gets economies of scale too! It makes sense
> to emphasize growth for shared hardware because the more widely it's
> supported the cheaper it gets.

 and this is where open interoperability standards come into their
own.  remember the XT / AT bus? made a huge difference!

 you can then get a Certification Mark on the standard.... off we go from there.

> I saw something about an Arduino small enough to fit into a battery tray
> along with the battery. That's the kind of thing that enables everyone to
> use Arduino and it never would have happened if Arduino hadn't achieved
> economies of scale.

 ok the arduino team *should* have set up a Certification Mark on the
hardware shield pinouts.  *that* was the correct way to do it, not
take out a Trademark on the word "Arduino".

> In other words, in order to approach the potential of libre/open in hardware
> we have to make it as easy as possible to replicate and distribute the
> hardware.

 mmmm.... so you'd say that unethical ends may be achieved by
unethical means?  (that's a trap, btw :)

> Thus, the open source mindset is more appropriate. It doesn't
> matter if a computer respects the freedoms of its users if only a couple
> hundred people can afford to use it.

 i'd totally disagree with the conclusion.  economics of scale tell us
that if you can do something for 100 people at huge cost, by the time
you get to even 10,000 now it's affordable.  you *really* want to go
to the trouble of designing something that's just a repetition of the
current paradigm?  because i don't!!

 by *definition* an unethical end may *never* be met through unethical means.

l.