OK, this looks functional enough to be useful to at least some folks
around here, yet small enough to be doable, and a useful step towards
RYF/libre computing hardware.
I hope they are successful.
Zenaan
----- Forwarded message from "Donald Robertson, III, FSF" <donald@fsf.org> -----
Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 20:49:59 -0400
From: "Donald Robertson, III, FSF" <donald@fsf.org>
Reply-To: "Donald Robertson, III, FSF" <donald@fsf.org>
Subject: Support the Libre Tea Computer Card
**Read online: <https://www.fsf.org/blogs/licensing/support-the-libre-tea-computer-card-a-candidate-for-respects-your-freedom-certification>.**
Dear Mr Zenaan Harkness,
The Earth-friendly EOMA68 Computing Devices project is a
crowdfunding
campaign run on Crowd Supply to produce a line of hardware products
that are ecologically responsible and built based on royalty-free,
unencumbered hardware standards. They write:
"Now imagine if you owned a computing device that you could easily
fix yourself and inexpensively upgrade as needed. So, instead of
having to shell out for a completely new computer, you could simply
spend around US$50 to upgrade — which, by the way, you could easily
do in SECONDS, by pushing a button on the side of your device and
just popping in a new computer card. Doesn’t that sound like the way
it should be?"
[This project][1] certainly sounds appealing, but only if the computer
hardware is designed and configured to run software that does as much
as possible to respect
your freedom and ensure your control over your
device. Fortunately, one option you have when backing this project is
to purchase a Libre Tea Computer Card. After working closely with the
developers and reviewing a sample test board, we are confident that
their plans are to create a device that can achieve our [Respects Your
Freedom (RYF)][2] certification.
[1]: https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68/micro-desktop
[2]: https://www.fsf.org/ryf
The project is being developed by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton of
[Rhombus-Tech][3] and is sponsored by Christopher Waid of
[ThinkPenguin][4], a company that sells [multiple RYF-certified
hardware products][2]. It is exciting to see passionate free software
advocates in our community working with OEMs to produce a computer
hardware product capable of achieving RYF
certification. We hope that
this is the first of many computing systems they are able to design
and build that respect your freedom.
[3]: http://rhombus-tech.net
[4]: https://www.thinkpenguin.com/
The Libre Tea Computer Card is built with an Allwinner A20 dual core
processor configured to use the main CPU for graphics; it has 2 GB of
RAM and 8 GB of NAND Flash; and it will come pre-installed with
[Parabola GNU/Linux-libre][5], an [FSF-endorsed fully-free operating
system][6].
[5]: https://www.parabola.nu/
[6]: https://www.gnu.org/distros/free-distros
We encourage you to [back the Libre Tea Computer Card][1]. We'll have
to do another evaluation once it is actually produced to be sure it
meets our certification standards,
but we have high hopes. Their
funding deadline is August 26th, so don't delay!
Donald Robertson
Copyright & Licensing Associate