Era of cheap, commodity general-purpose computing has ended
Consumer machines are cryptograpically locked
Consumer markets have shifted to rental / cloud
Libre software advocates have three choices
Use cheap, low-end, reverse engineered machines for as long as they remain unlocked
Accept loss of owner control (and libre software)
Pay for full featured, owner-controlled machines
For now, the last generation of unlocked hardware (Intel 2008, AMD 2013) is not so far out of date as to be unbearable. As time goes on, I may just have to spring for option #3.
Relatedly, these slides present a horrifying attack surface.
From the summary:
Era of cheap, commodity general-purpose computing has ended
Consumer machines are cryptograpically locked
Consumer markets have shifted to rental / cloud
Libre software advocates have three choices
Use cheap, low-end, reverse engineered machines for as long as they remain unlocked
Accept loss of owner control (and libre software)
Pay for full featured, owner-controlled machines
For now, the last generation of unlocked hardware (Intel 2008, AMD 2013) is not so far out of date as to be unbearable. As time goes on, I may just have to spring for option #3.
I’m cheap, so a few years older is fine for me for AMD :) Well until it the year 2020 or so.