The interesting thing about Raptor's Power9 boards is their emphasis on open firmware.

But I'm disappointed that the Blackbird wasn't at a lower price point (such as if IBM heavily subsidized it, to try to get more open source labor supporting their architecture). It's hard to get excited about paying big bucks to volunteer for IBM.

Personally, I'm now more interested in RISC-V boards that are even more open than what Raptor has been doing with Power9. Something like the Raspberry Pi, but RISC-V and more open, would be awesome.