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> Open hardware like the Raspberry Pi

You can't even boot the raspberry pi without running closed software.

That seems pretty far from "open hardware". True that likely any similar project requires closed source drivers for things like the EC/embedded controller, 3D acceleration, and maybe the 802.11 chip, but at least you can choose to boot and use the system without support for the closed devices.



GP said "we're finally seeing an uptick" and your rebuttal is that everything is not perfect.

Please stop. This mindset is actively harmful. There's no "giant leap", it's all small steps.


> You can't even boot the raspberry pi without running closed software.

I thought that this was no longer necessary[1], but after searching around I'm not sure if this means it is possible to boot without the blob. Does anyone know if this is the case?

[1] http://www.raspberrypi.org/a-birthday-present-from-broadcom/


The blob has been open sourced, their followup post describes the steps to build it from scratch:

http://www.raspberrypi.org/quake-iii-bounty-we-have-a-winner...


no, 3d driver part of the blob is semi open blob is still closed source black box of secret sauce (video encoders/decoders, IO ports, bootstrapping)




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