Talos Secure Workstation crowdfunding (was Re: Uncorrectable freedom and security issues on x86 platforms)

[Timothy Pearson]

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On 10/24/2016 05:38 PM, Paul Boddie wrote:
> On Monday 4. April 2016 17.06.23 Timothy Pearson wrote:
>>
>> === POWER ===
>>
>> IBM has recently released their high-performance POWER8 architecture for
>> third party licensing, and has also released a small treasure trove of
>> firmware and documentation for these devices.  POWER is the only
>> architecture currently competitive with Intel in terms of raw
>> performance, and boots using a fully FOSS firmware with no DRM
>> antifeatures embedded.  The primary disadvantage of power is cost, as it
>> is currently targeted at the server and datacenter markets.  We are
>> attempting to bring POWER to the high-end workstation market in a
>> FOSS-friendly form via the Talos™ Secure Workstation, but need
>> additional interest to make this a reality:
>> https://raptorengineeringinc.com/TALOS/prerelease.php
> 
> Having seen the EOMA68 crowdfunding campaign get funded on Crowd Supply, it 
> was interesting to see you proceed with a rather more ambitious campaign for 
> Talos:
> 
> https://www.crowdsupply.com/raptor-computing-systems/talos-secure-workstation
> 
> It's notable that you've raised as much in pledges in about ten days as the 
> EOMA68 campaign raised within its entire funding window, but then again, 
> you're attempting to raise twenty times that amount or so.
> 
> What you're offering is largely beyond my computing budget, but I hope you 
> manage to meet your target. Looking at the product pledges, it's clear that 
> some demand is there, particularly when four- and five-figure dollar amounts 
> are involved!

Thank you for the encouragement!  We would really like to get these
powerful development tools into the hands of people working on
developing next-generation libre software, as that is really where they
are needed.

I would also like to briefly highlight the SSH access pledge levels for
this campaign.  If you can't afford this first generation Talos™
machine, but still want to try out POWER8, this is a good way to both
get direct experience with the POWER architecture and help define the
future of powerful libre-friendly computing in the process.

- -- 
Timothy Pearson
Raptor Engineering
+1 (415) 727-8645 (direct line)
+1 (512) 690-0200 (switchboard)
https://www.raptorengineering.com
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