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:Wasn't there already a free laptop (Score:5, Interesting)
No, I think Stallman's laptop just happened to have a free BIOS. IIRC Stallman does not think that free hardware is nearly as important as free software. This is a an open/free source hardware design meaning that anyone could theoretically grab the design files, do whatever changes they want and then start producing the board.
The integrated circuits are for the most part closed designs of course. If you want to design a completely and utterly open laptop you must first design an open universe...