IRC #olimex 2019-07-08

[10:48:56] <Tsvetan> jo0nas you asked my why OLinuXino are not officially OSHWA certified, the truth is that I neglected the OSHWA submissions for a long time due to the lack of free time, but now I'm ready to fix it and we started certification for all our OSHW boards, it will take time as every submission has to be check carefully, but now A13-OLinuXino, A10-OLinuXino-LIME, A20-OLinuXino-LIME, A20-OLinuXino-LIME2 and A20-OLinuXino-LIME2 are officially listed in OSHWA Open
[10:48:56] <Tsvetan> Hardware directory and many others are to follow
[10:49:53] <Tsvetan> A20-OLinuXino-LIME2 with FreedomBox software is sent also for Respect Your Freedom certification
[11:10:22] <braunr> :)
[11:11:47] <braunr> it's funny how, at work, the IAR dev board we use is an olimex fork, and they left the olimex website on it
[12:46:59] <Tsvetan> braunr we have developed lot of starterkits for IAR, so they didn't fork, but paid for the development
[12:48:19] <braunr> oh very nice to know :)
[13:38:05] <jo0nas> Tsvetan: Great! I hope it will be not only symbolic but also attract more customers!
[14:06:52] <Tsvetan> jo0nas looking at OSHWA certification directory only OLinuXino and BeagleBone pass official OSHW certification all other "open spec" "community" etc boards which try to confuse people about how open source they are by publishing early revision PDF schematic has no chances unless meet the OSHWA definition and open their CAD files under proper licensee
[14:22:26] <jo0nas> Tsvetan: yes, you pointed that out to me when we met at FOSDEM few years ago :-)
[14:24:14] <jo0nas> that is also main reason I encourages you to finalize the certification: It is far easier for me to poit out to others that OSHW is the simple way to check _proper_ freedom of hardware when the Olimex boards that I promote is actually listed there!
[14:24:22] <jo0nas> point*
[14:26:43] <Tsvetan> I'm crossing fingers LIME2+FreedomBox to pass RYF also
[14:45:33] <jo0nas> me too :-)
[14:46:17] <jo0nas> Tsvetan: did you see my suggestion on adding a case for the A64 board?
[14:49:47] <jo0nas> in the Freedombox community there is a real interest in SBCs with more memory that the LIME2 even if lacking other features like SATA - I would love to be able to recommend a freedom-friendly board with box, and imagine it would be relatively small effort to expand your product line for that form factor (and the board should already be supported in Debian since some time)
[14:51:03] <jo0nas> (yes, I am aware that "more memory" is a relative term when switching from 32bit to 64bit boards - there is real interest nevertheless: People want to run crappy non-optimized services like Matrix)
[14:52:55] <Tsvetan> we now finish our RK3328-SOM204 it has Gigabit+Megabit Ethernets working together, mainline Linux, PCIe and is good candidate for new FreedomBox server as it supports 4GB RAM
[14:53:16] <Tsvetan> on the PCIe can be connected second gigabit ethernet or SATA drive
[14:53:33] <Tsvetan> once we test everything we will make RK3328-OLinuXino
[14:53:57] <jo0nas> which form factor?
[14:54:03] <Tsvetan> LIME
[14:54:07] <jo0nas> nice!
[14:55:19] <jo0nas> I still suggest you consider offering a board for the A64 board - a benefit is that it works _now_ with stable Debian (Debian 10 a.k.a. Buster was released few days ago with support in debian-installer for the A64 board)
[14:57:32] <jo0nas> Tsvetan: when the upcoming RK3328 board it is a SOM204 board then doesn't that mean it is designed with non-free CAD tools and cannot be certified as OSHW?
[14:58:09] <jo0nas> ...or has KiCAD matured enough to handle that? (or am I simply mistaken...?)
[15:37:39] <Tsvetan> no, the SOMs are made for corporate customers who do not want to open source their boards as required if they use OLinuXino for base
[15:47:03] <jo0nas> ah ok, I thought it was a technical limitation due to those boards being more compact
[15:49:48] <jo0nas> Tsvetan: Did you consider the option of offering boards under a general public license _AND_ offer same boards under a different commercial license as well? As copyright holder you need not limit yourself to a single licensing scheme