For embedded and laptop devices, are there power devices or other options for truly free firmware?
The desktop price point on current boxes are still high, do you foresee those prices dropping in the future?
Will newer POWER architectures create a large workload for you or is it more simple?
- cal
Price point is not likely to drop until we reach a largely self sufficient critical mass of users, developers, and software. Only x86 has crossed that threshold right now, so it's clearly a high bar. Still, the more users we have, the more possibility for pricing drops in the future!
New POWER is near seamless from a software perspective, just like on x86. Upgrade kernel, keep using your existing software installs. And since POWER is now an open ISA, that software will basically keep working forever -- if you needed to reimplement it on a 22nd century FPGA due to lack of hardware, you're legally able to do so. This is not the case for x86 or ARM.
I've been looking for one and I have the same concerns you do, and right now the only thing I realistically see if I want completely open is a thinkpad x200/t400 flashed with libreboot.
Nothing I do with secure data hard-requires that level of portability, and for insecure (tracked, DRMed, closed + signed firmware) mobile use a Lineage smartphone is good enough for what I do. A laptop with closed / signed firmware simply doesn't gain me anything worth having over the phone.
My personal desktop is a Blackbird. The couple of old x86 apps I can't easily ditch (because they are open source but need MVC APIs and I'm too lazy to write the shim layer) I just forward X over SSH to an old corebooted Opteron box.
Can you put a POWER "base station" of sorts in your dorm / apartment and use a low power secure terminal, like a corebooted C201, to access it over an encrypted link?
I've done something like this when I had to travel last -- was able to maintain a stable link back to one of my POWER machines so the lack of local computing power on the laptop didn't matter. Really hate that Chromebook touchpad though. ;)
Both. Copyright applies to some aspects, patents to others, and then you also get into trademark rights. With the US having embraced effectively permanent copyright, ISAs will not be freely able to be implemented unless their owner expressly allows it (my understanding is that the Oracle vs. Google case solidified this thinking).
Fundamentally, that means you get to pick from RISC-V, POWER, or SPARC when selecting a well known ISA for your new device, or start signing licensing agreements (which always come with restrictions and oftentimes significant royalties).