Other blog titles we considered...
Power to the People
Open-Gratis-Libre
Friday Free Stuff (...but, Mary sort of has that one already.)
Let Freedom Ring II
The latter follows up on the previous blog of the same title from last week: Let Freedom Ring. In any case, the point is we have decided to make the complete design and component listing for the PegasosPPC available for free download. The PegasosPPC is the mainboard and CPU card used in the Award-Winning Open Desktop Workstation (ODW).
PegasosPPC
The Platform has a solid international Developer and User Community as Genesi has supported a number of operating systems/GNU Linux distributions on the Platform, including Debian, Gentoo, CruxPPC, SUSE, Fedora, MorphOS, SkoleLinux, and last but not least Blastware/OpenSolaris. FYI, you *will* be seeing Solaris running on this platform in the not-too-distant-future! We should mention that Freescale played a role in supporting us to support those Communities. Thanks Freescale!
In sorting out how we would do this, we decided there was only one best way. We will seek to do this through Power.org. We hope to do this in days, not weeks. There is one requirement we have proposed, but it is not any sort of a license. It would be Power.org Membership. Don't worry, be happy - there is a new and free Developer category coming. We hope to see it all open at the same time. Naturally, we want to drive new corporate memberships to Power.org as well. We see a new and exciting ecosystem developing around defined standards that provide a solid bedrock for development. Power.org will certainly become a powerhouse of innovation and creativity!
In the meanwhile, you are welcome to test run the Open Desktop Workstation operating as a Tarrantella server at TechOnLine. Registration is required, but the opportunity is gratis.
We do offer for a nominal per unit fee our Pegasos HAL/OF. The Pegasos HAL/OF insures that everthing running on the ODW today will run on any PowerPC/POWER based platform. Shoot us an email if you are interested. You can still purchase an ODW in the PegasosPPC Store.
Here are a couple of screenshots for your consideration...
The latest and greatest J2SE on the ODW...
We think many smart people will know what to do with this
Our Open Platform Presentation underscores the importance of local ownership of the development process and why free software and open hardware are going to usher in a whole new generation of opportunity and freedom for those that have not had such opportunity and freedom before. This will be our first hardware design release. There will be more...
With Power to the People a fait accompli what can be next!?!
R&B :-)
8 comments:
I was a skeptic. Not anymore!
Looking forward to your EFIKA and PPC970 offerings!
We will add a bit more information just to clarify and explain a few things...
The objective is to make the design license-free and the HAL/OF optional.
Part of our decision revolves around the lack of interest from the bigger CPU manufacturers in a general purpose processor for the compute market. Look at where Freescale and IBM are headed...
Freescale is moving toward the stronger embedded markets (network and wireless support in NCSG where the PowerPC is based) after the Apple decision. Think about it...
1. Transistor scaling and leakage in the process technology arena is an inescapable fact as frequencies increase.
2. Supporting a desktop and portable market requires development from both the process technology node and design node. Supporting both markets is expensive. Freescale gave up on the desktop some time ago and without Apple they are moving out of the portable space too - at least in the general purpose processor category at the higher frequencies, i.e., the G4.
What is a smaller company to do?
Looking at IBM, they have two interests,
1. They are the largest server vendor in the world.
2. They want to commoditize the client side of the equation as much as possible, because they want zillions of client devices with the same ISA to be talking to their servers.
This is why our new board the EFIKA makes absolutely perfect sense. The EFIKA uses the Freescale MPC5200 which is an SoC. The COG on the EFIKA is less than $100.
The server developments we have for Freescale and IBM also fit into that whole bigger POWER strategy.
The approach with the PegasosPPC (and ODW) is to extend the potential of the desktop/portable general processor based platform market for as long as we can, so making the barrier to entry non-existent makes good sense. And, we promote the HAL/OF at the same time.
Send us an email if you have questions: bbrv@genesippc.com
R&B :-)
That's all nice and well, but these motherboards and machines are workstation class hardware. For example, the board you present a picture of has RAM and CPU slots laid out clearly perpendicular to the air flow, and the CPU module seems to be 2U or higher, and as such cannot be used in a 1U server case!
This hardware simply isn't suitable for high density and for production computing. Will you even be addressing this market?
And how will you deal with the PERCEPTION that PPC has a cronic supply shortage?
I have to criticize you on this: you're pushing for an open hardware platform, but you seem to be on a completely wrong track, in a completely different universe.
Yes, they are, but they can be used in a variety of ways. There are plenty of examples of the ODW being used as servers or netcom devices in the blog archives. The ODW was designed first and foremost as an upgradeable workstation for developers, a PowerPC host/target development environment. That is what it is. It will not fit in a 1U case, although we did squeeze one into a 2U case once:
http://www.pegasosppc.com/image.php?id=928
http://www.pegasosppc.com/image.php?id=930
We are addressing the other markets as mentioned:
1. Portable and Embedded space: EFIKA
2. Server space: both projects under development are mentioned above and here:
http://www.genesippc.com/press.php?date=20050926
Eventually, all these designs will be completely released in the same manner.
R&B :-)
Comment to Anonymous:
You say:
"That's all nice and well, but these motherboards and machines are workstation class hardware. For example, the board you present a picture of has RAM and CPU slots laid out clearly perpendicular to the air flow, and the CPU module seems to be 2U or higher, and as such cannot be used in a 1U server case!...etc"
Open/Free hardware means also freely possible redesign (or I'm missed something). If some free hardware cannot fit your needs, please feel free to adapt it to your needs, whatever it is.
There isn't reasons for declaration of some movement like "wrong track" or "different universe", if this can be solved with same nature of movement. (IMHO, of course)
For example we can obtain: Pegasos Pico Server, Pegasos uServer, Pegasos Video Render Farm, thin, tick, fat, yellow, blue, red,... whatever :)
Best regards,
Bogic Petrovic
BoZo Electronics
You can't tell your customers:
"it's open, so whatever you need, you can do it yourself!"
You're in end effect making the customer think:
"if I have to develop the HW myself, what do I need Genesi / ODW for?"
And most mainstream customers (which is where the CASH really is) won't or won't know how to develop their own HW. At best, they'll want modular kits that they can build stuff out of to meet their exact needs (1U, rack mountable servers in my case).
And while we're on the subject of ODW: yes, it was designed to be a development workstation. That's clear. The question is however, if there's no server HW to run that developed stuff on, what good is it?
Desktops are pretty much useless without the internet backbone that allows it to communicate (servers!!!), in transcended sense, a single desktop is useless without the grid or "the network is the computer".
Times of isolated home-computing (think C= Amiga) are long gone... we don't swap disks in the mail any more.
We agree...see blog 11/22/05.
R&B :-)
Wow . it was really interesting post and comments also.. thanks a lot of all of you guys for sharing your knowledge.
Post a Comment