Novena: Open Source Hardware laptop launches!

Bunnie Huang and Sean Cross have a nice write-up of Novena in the latest IEEE Spectrum: Novena: A Laptop With No Secrets - IEEE Spectrum

They talk about the FPGA a lot, which is good, but they neglect to say that the FPGA is closed source like the GPU and you can't even run Xilinx tools on Novena itself.  I'm not criticizing Novena for selecting the Spartan-6, since it's a very nice part, but IMO an OSHW/SW project should be clear about what parts aren't open.  Also, they missed a fine opportunity to advocate for open FPGA bitstream documentation.

Warning: while most of the comments at the IEEE Spectrum link are nice, some are pretty ugly.  Well, that's the Internet for you

Bunnie Huang and Sean Cross have a nice write-up of Novena in the latest IEEE Spectrum: Novena: A Laptop With No Secrets - IEEE Spectrum

They talk about the FPGA a lot, which is good, but they neglect to say that the FPGA is closed source like the GPU and you can't even run Xilinx tools on Novena itself.  I'm not criticizing Novena for selecting the Spartan-6, since it's a very nice part, but IMO an OSHW/SW project should be clear about what parts aren't open.  Also, they missed a fine opportunity to advocate for open FPGA bitstream documentation.

Warning: while most of the comments at the IEEE Spectrum link are nice, some are pretty ugly.  Well, that's the Internet for you

Hi John,

Thanks so much for the link. I really enjoyed reading it, and have bookmarked it. I won't comment on the FPGA bit since you summarized that, but the article

was interesting overall too. Bunnie and Sean didn't go into the reasons why they wanted to have the production run, but trying to get in their mind, I guess they

partly thought there was market (albeit low volume) for an open source laptop with expansion interfaces beyond the norm for a laptop, and it was partly a labour of love too,

and partly to see how to produce things. I'm glad they trail-blazed though.

As you say the offering has critics by the looks of the comments on that post, but their laptop was something in-between a "best guess" given how they thought others would

use it (e.g. having a more generic FPGA subsystem rather than one connected to motor interfaces) and how they wished to use it.

I think most of us would have done things differently, but often that is the case.

I had to present at a conference yesterday, and one of the "best practice" guidelines we'd sucked up from colleagues to present to the audience was that it is highly

worth spending time learning about establishing the minimum viable product (MVP) when you're trying to innovate.

LOL. As engineers it is exciting to want to build, but being super-aware of what customers want is important too.

john,

I have read the article link you posted and Novena is not a new things, I started following this project by when Drew start noticing it. I remain skeptic... As a matter of fact, it sounds to me a circular concept; it is almost impossible - excluding to make the base CPU project from scratch - to have a open hardware device like a laptop with all parts full exposed, circuits schematics etc. They are appreciable because gone beyond the bare assembly another laptop, but most of the choices, especially the FPGA approach are something that needs a computer to manage this computer. But this sounds obvious to me. The point is that the price that this effort has generated IMO is too high respect the real benefits. As Shabaz says, it's a good dream, it's great to see it become reality but I see big difficulties that this product become popular and not a very specific niche jewel.

Enrico

thanks, John!  I hadn't see that article yet.  Love my Novena

I think the Librem laptops from Purism will be closer to what an average consumer would want:

https://puri.sm/

I've been following Purism with interest. Their blog has been very informative about the nitty gritty of Intel firmware:

BIOS Freedom Status

https://puri.sm/posts/bios-freedom-status/

Roadmap To A Completely Free BIOS

https://puri.sm/posts/roadmap-to-a-completely-free-bios/

Road to FSF RYF Endorsement… and Beyond

https://puri.sm/road-to-fsf-ryf-endorsement-and-beyond/

Specifically, I found this very interesting:

"Because Purism ships Librem CPUs fused to allow unsigned software, we

have set our sights on publishing a Free Software implementation of

the Management Engine firmware. No other company currently offers CPUs

with this configuration, though it is our hope that our success will

prompt more and more companies to fuse their CPUs for freedom."

cheers,

drew