A promise of open hardware
Doghouse – Open Hardware
After 25 years of waiting for open hardware, Maddog predicts the era of closed, proprietary chips as the only option is drawing to an end.
For close to 25 years, I have been dealing with trying to develop and maintain computer systems over long periods of time. In dealing with the longevity issues, I have been suffering through the use of closed source firmware inherent in GPUs, BIOS, WiFi, Bluetooth, etc. in particular, and closed source in general.
For the first 20 years, I was very patient. I realized that companies had business plans, and they did not know or trust Free and Open Source Software and Hardware (FOSSH) business plans. Some had contracts that they had signed as they bought and sold intellectual property (IP). Some companies could not expose the sources of the software they bought because of the contracts they had signed with the software or hardware providers. Who could possibly have the expertise to maintain the software provided with the hardware or produce software better than the manufacturer, right? Read that last sentence with sarcasm turned fully on.
In the late 1980s, Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) had a world-class X Window System server that worked with "dumb frame buffers." The engineer who wrote the code refused to support shipping the source code due to the IP that was inherent in the X server. DEC was losing millions of dollars of sales, because we did not make our X server code available.
[...]
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
US / Canada
UK / Australia
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
Wayland 1.24 Released with Fixes and New Features
Wayland continues to move forward, while X11 slowly vanishes into the shadows, and the latest release includes plenty of improvements.
-
Bugs Found in sudo
Two critical flaws allow users to gain access to root privileges.
-
Fedora Continues 32-Bit Support
In a move that should come as a relief to some portions of the Linux community, Fedora will continue supporting 32-bit architecture.
-
Linux Kernel 6.17 Drops bcachefs
After a clash over some late fixes and disagreements between bcachefs's lead developer and Linus Torvalds, bachefs is out.
-
ONLYOFFICE v9 Embraces AI
Like nearly all office suites on the market (except LibreOffice), ONLYOFFICE has decided to go the AI route.
-
Two Local Privilege Escalation Flaws Discovered in Linux
Qualys researchers have discovered two local privilege escalation vulnerabilities that allow hackers to gain root privileges on major Linux distributions.
-
New TUXEDO InfinityBook Pro Powered by AMD Ryzen AI 300
The TUXEDO InfinityBook Pro 14 Gen10 offers serious power that is ready for your business, development, or entertainment needs.
-
LibreOffice Tested as Possible Office 365 Alternative
Another major organization has decided to test the possibility of migrating from Microsoft's Office 365 to LibreOffice.
-
Linux Mint 20 Reaches EOL
With Linux Mint 20 at its end of life, the time has arrived to upgrade to Linux Mint 22.
-
TuxCare Announces Support for AlmaLinux 9.2
Thanks to TuxCare, AlmaLinux 9.2 (and soon version 9.6) now enjoys years of ongoing patching and compliance.