On Thu, Mar 19, 2015 at 5:26 PM, Paul Boddie paul@boddie.org.uk wrote:
On Tuesday 17. March 2015 22.14.19 Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton wrote:
hi folks,
ok - does anyone know of any companies that sell Libre or FSF-Endorseable hardware? i have thinkpenguin, laclinux, hardware-libre.fr and inatux.com on the list already, i am looking to contact companies that would like to help sponsor these projects, it is very close so i would like to keep going full-time on them now.
A while ago someone started a list of vendors of systems that promote/support Free Software on the FSFE Fellowship Wiki, and it has since grown considerably, although some entries probably need updating or removing:
https://wiki.fsfe.org/Hardware_Vendors
It might be worth a look. FSF-endorseable status is not mentioned, but that has mostly been a rarity until now, anyway, especially in the PC part of the market. Generally, a lot of these lists on the Web are out-of-date or feature all sorts of products that you might not care about, but the aim is to keep this one useful.
Paul
P.S. You'll also see that Rhombus Tech is mentioned in the Single Board Computers section of that page. When this was updated some time back, the situation as far as I understood it was that the EOMA-68 initiative might assert patents against people making "unauthorised" products based on the published standard, and so a warning note was added.
well, i believed that patents would do the job exactly as actually turns out that Certification Marks (the twin brother of Trade Marks) actually does.
so what i intend to do hasn't changed, but people's *understanding* has changed.
Since then, I think your policies (and associates)
my *former* associates turned out be a a bunch of short-sighted financially-motivated individuals who would do whatever it takes to make profits first, disregarding all and any principles and goals required in order to achieve those profits.
*my* policies, principles and goals haven't changed: they're just now better understood.
have changed and that you're aiming to go down the trademark-plus-certification route to avoid unsafe clones bringing the initiative into disrepute
... and to protect people from being injured or killed by unsafe clones: yes absolutely. that has always always been the goal, even when i believed that patents would be the means by which that could be achieved: turns out that it's Registered Certification Marks that are the better vehicle.
(which I also imagine is a lot more viable a strategy, anyway).
it's always been the strategy, paul.
I'll gladly update the above page to clarify the situation if this is indeed the case. :-)
yes please, i didn't realise that there was a page which mis-advised people based on a misunderstanding of what i said. i believe i can say that safely (without offense paul!) because (a) you find the certification marks explanation acceptable but the patents one not and (b) i do recall endeavouring to make it clear, but really: there's *really* nothing new or different between what i said four years ago and six months ago [apart from the tool four years ago was patents, and the tool six months ago was certification marks]. *really*. so, from (a) and (b), we can logically and rationally deduce that there must have been a complete misunderstanding.
what i do remember though about the conversation four years ago was that there were a lot of people really "not getting it". also, i am keenly aware that there is a huge aversion to patents in the software libre community, as they tend to be severely abused, lending an aura of "total automatic distrust" of the inventors. as a result of that abuse we know that there are now several linux patent groups formed: i recall that it was almost *demanded* of me to transfer full responsibility and control of the patents to those groups! groups who have *no way* to fully grok the scope of this project.
since then, if you recall, when i entrusted responsibility for getting the MEB crowdfunded to a third party with good software libre credentials, i had to fight to keep it on track, even to the extent of posting very embarrassing public corrections on their forums due to them making unauthorised committments about changes and additions to the standard that, if implemented, would throw the *entire* standard into disrepute.
so with that as just one example that i - all of us - learned from, i think you can see why it is not safe to entrust anything like patents or trademarks to any other third party... yet. *once this is all established* and running safely, then yes i will set up a foundation, with strict rules, find some appropriate directors, and leave it in their hands. but that will be several years yet.
l.