Re: [libreplanet-discuss] Reverse Engineering

[Fabio Pesari]

On 02/07/2016 09:04 AM, Giuseppe Molica wrote:
> 
> I agree with you, but there are "technical limits". Designing and
> creating a new hardware is more difficult than write a software, and
> it requires too many resources.

Fortunately crowdfunding exists, so we could gather those resources
simply by paying for them, just like everybody else in the industry does!

The free software movement must quit the mentality that it should rely
on volunteer contributions, for its own good. There's no reason a free
software supporter has to support themselves by working another day job
which often involves creating proprietary stuff (and signing NDAs and
non-competing clauses which prevent them from doing more); the only way
to get leading experts on things like hardware design is to hire them,
because they aren't as plentiful as programmers and can find a job at a
big company pretty easily.

And free software supporters should also be more willing to donate their
money regularly to organizations like the FSF and SFConservancy and to
the people who develop the software they use daily.

> And what about CPUs? If you want to use x86 ISA you have to ask for a
> license. The same for ARM.
> So? MIPS? Then you have to modify a lot of programs who were (and are,
> right now) built for x86.

I am no hardware expert but these might interest you:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RISC-V
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenRISC
http://www.lowrisc.org/

Sadly, it seems like RISC-V has already been co-opted by Google, HP and
Oracle, but hopefully everything they produce will be released under a
free license so this might not be a big deal.