Hello everyone,
I’ve been wondering, why has no one built an entirely free (as in freedom) computer yet? For humans to be unable to share each other’s knowledge to build one of the most important technologies ever created for society, how is it that we have yet to have full knowledge about how our systems operate?
I get that companies are basically the ones to blame, and I know there are alternatives like the Talos II by Raptor Computing, but still, how do we not have publicly available full schematics for just one modern computer? I’m talking down to firmware-level stuff like proprietary ECs, microcode, hard drive/SSD firmware, network controllers, etc. How do we not have a fully open system yet?
The fabs broke sub-micron well over 30 years ago, the biggest reason it won’t happen sooner in the public space is because most assume making it open-source is impossible. Technology hasn’t progressed because people said X (variable, not the social formerly known as Twitter) was impossible, it progressed because of the people who questioned that assumption.