The so-called ‘Linux’ Foundation is reducing its focus on Linux and is instead busy promoting Microsoft, Facebook, and other interests that GNU/Linux users strongly dislike

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[–]binaryblob 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (3 children)

I wish I could buy hardware that came with a data sheet without NDAs with the promise of it always being available. If you look at Linux, they just hack up some drivers and hope for the best, because they literally don't know how the hardware works. In a way, you literally can't buy a good computer these days. If you bought a computer 30 years ago, you would get a manual.

[–]panel30 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

is there really no good option for hardware right now? Aren't there groups that are trying to do things better in this regard? I feel like I have heard of some but I can't remember offhand.

[–]binaryblob 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

There's 10 year old hardware that is fairly open (the FSF uses those machines, which is easy to find), but that's not being produced anymore. Since the invention of methods to hide circuits in chips, there is no way to know what nefarious things these chips are doing anymore.

You can simulate a CPU on an FPGA too, but the same issues plague a FPGA. Certainly, as a country, if you don't have the whole supply chain in your own country, you have no idea what you are doing.

In a way this concerns everyone, but if everyone were like me all current hardware would be banned from sales and e.g. Apple wouldn't even be able to operate. Thus, the problem is that my fellow humans are too stupid and ruin my life because of it.

[–]panel30 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

hmm. I don't know much about hardware and didn't realize about people hiding stuff in chips. I keep seeing people recommend this or that company for more open hardware but I guess we're not there yet, since it looks like there's no open manufacturer for some of the components.

Maybe I can look into what the FSF recommends for now. Thanks. Hopefully the situation will improve as more people become aware and interested. There are at least people trying to handle the open hardware issue even if they haven't gotten to all the components yet, so that's good at least.