this post was submitted on 06 Feb 2024
101 points (89.8% liked)

Linux

48031 readers
789 users here now

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

Rules

Related Communities

Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
 

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?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] SkyNTP@lemmy.ml 23 points 9 months ago (2 children)

To add to what has already been said about it taking a large effort, the follow up question is then, why don't governments fund all this effort publicly through taxes, like what is done with roads, scientific research, education, healthcare?

Well the short answer is that high-performance computing specifically is a strategic resource. Publicly funding roads only benefits the country doing the funding, so that is an easy decision to make. Meanwhile, much of the publicly funded scientific research has minimal to no strategic value (or may only be of value in states capable of that investment in the first place), so this is also an easy decision to make. But giving away technological investments in strategic ressources to rival states is a pretty bad move.

[–] SheeEttin@programming.dev 10 points 9 months ago

They absolutely do fund development like this. But they keep it for themselves until such time that it no longer gives them a competitive edge.

For example, when the US sells tanks or planes to other countries, those export versions have much less fancy equipment on the inside. Or in pure science like cryptography, you can assume that when the NSA publicly approves of an algorithm, they're confident that they can break it if they really need to (either because they inserted a backdoor, have identified a weakness they can exploit, or just have no use for it any more themselves).

[–] Crack0n7uesday@lemmy.world 3 points 9 months ago

The government might maintain the roads but they don't pay for your car, and they try not give their enemies tanks.