Progress On the Open Laptop 57
An anonymous reader writes "Last October, we discussed Andrew 'bunnie' Huang's effort to build a complete open hardware laptop, called the Novena. bunnie has now posted a progress report on the laptop's design and construction, showing the latest revision of the board, the display, and a hack to use it as a secure router. bunnie says, 'At the end of the day, we're having fun building the laptop we always wanted — it's now somewhere between a python-scriptable oscilloscope, logic analyzer, and a laptop. I think it will be an indispensable tool for hacking, particularly for doing signal analysis which requires coordination across multiple protocol layers, complex trigger conditions and/or feedback stimulus loops. As for the inevitable question about if these will be sold, and for how muchonce we're done building the system (and, "done" is a moving target — really, the whole idea is this is continuously under development and improving) I'll make it available to qualified buyers. Because it's open-source and a bit quirky, I'm shy on the idea of just selling it to anyone who comes along wanting a laptop. I'm worried about buyers who don't understand that "open" also means a bit of DIY hacking to get things working, and that things are continuously under development."
Re:Qualified Buyer (Score:3, Informative)
It sounds like it is more about making sure that the buyer is absolutely clear about what she/he is getting. Qualifying buyers means you can at least have a conversation where the purchaser says 'I know there are going to be a *lot* of rough edges and I'm okay with major functionality possibly not working'. Otherwise, you end up with buyers who see the word open and rush to buy it perhaps without realizing what they were getting.
Maybe this fear is founded, maybe it isn't. But I don't see it as being completely unreasonable.