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Open Hardware and Software Laptop
New submitter mihai.todor85 writes "It looks like Andrew 'bunnie' Huang has been quite busy lately, developing a nice open hardware laptop. He was even kind enough to provide all the schematics without NDA. For anybody interested in owning such a device, he says that he 'might be convinced to try a Kickstarter campaign in several months, once the design is stable and tested' if enough people are interested."
You sir, are an idiot.
RMS created the free software movement. He is the original author of gcc, emacs, and others. Unless you only use windows (probably the case based on your post), you have benefited from his work. Lots of kids here on /. like to trash talk RMS at every opportunity, but they are either stupid, or ignorant of what the world was like without RMS's free software movement.
No, free software doesn't feed starving babies, but it is the basis of the education of millions. And, many thousands of those millions contribute back-- keeping this movement of sharing knowlege alive-- now across generations.
You. What have you done with your life that makes you think you measure up favorably against someone like RMS who has done so much? Yeah, thought so. Nope, being a pathetic loser troll doesn't give you any bragging rights.
World needs more dedicated folks like RMS (in all fields).
Free software is a very large part of the reason these idiot trolls have the ability to annoy people. They should be thankful. the era of software freedom seems to coming to a close though. Open source has won the battle for the server, but is in a losing battle for the client, with walled gardens springing up all over.
It's just a flicker in time like DOS vs Apple ][. HTML5 & the open web is the standard. For example the preferred graphing calculator for many isn't local, but Wolfram Alpha. Then local apps are only a manifest file away, like Firefox OS does.
Sure native's faster, but HTML5's write-once, run-everywhere (a feature no one else can offer now) is big.
Science & open-source build trust from peer review. Learn systems you can trust.
What exact benefit does this supposedly 'open' laptop have over just buying something like a Thinkpad that uses Intel components that are well-supported by open source drivers on open source operating systems (Linux, *BSD, etc.)? If it's to promote the use of standardized components that can be re-used in different laptop designs, it may serve to reduce costs or to increase the useful life of some of those parts. On the other hand, the standardization would also limit designs and prevent some cutting edge innovations from being utilized. All-in-all, as great as it's been to have interchangeable components on desktop builds, there's a reason why there's been limited standardization on laptops and servers, where innovation has more benefit. And considering how inexpensive laptops have already become simply due to competition, I see there being little to gain but much to lose from this approach.
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extremely high chance its not RMS, but some guy whose day job is at a huge corporation, "selling out" to the man. the whole thing is hypocrisy stuffed inside the asshole of elitism. most 'free software' is built by work-a-day nobodies who prefer anonymity and the act of building itself to any kind of idealistic horse shit.