Why hasn't anyone built an entirely free computer yet?
Why hasn't anyone built an entirely free computer yet?
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?
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Investment... It's a bit too simple to just say money, but investment wraps it up better. Chips may not be open source, but they are physically there to be taken apart and reproduced. That's what a lot of those Chinese knockoff chips are (baring the ones where the designs are outright stolen). The only thing that stops you from doing the same thing as those bootleg fabs is being willing to soak time and resources into the project. It's just a big project. Like a Bloomfield i7 (which is old and fairly large) has 731 million transistors in it...