we need to focus hard on building serious open hardware capacities, because if ppl will opt out of proprietary operating systems which verify age, they will move age verification into hardware, so we need to avoid proprietary hardware too. ...better to start immediately supporting that and sharing options, because its not a questiin IF, but only WHEN they will do that.
yeah, if we just wait, that day you describe will surely come.
Soms wait for times to change, others seizes it forcefully and act, because the best way to predict the future is to create it.
If we dont built the alternative and look for others who do to team up and support them to grow a strong alternative network that produces the future we want - we will for sure NOT get the future we want.
protesting might block studf temporarily, but not produce a better alternative
@serapath @catsalad I agree with you that the future will be what we decide it to be.
But FOSS is one thing. Chip and PCB design and production is another league, that we as a free and independent intellectual community cannot achieve that easily.
We can only create a market niche by supporting it where we can, hoping that some company will follow our call. But even then those companies will have to comply with national regulations.
@tubetime @Amorpheus @serapath @catsalad ๐ yeah, I was kidding! I know we aren't going to knock up a PCB-based, GHz-speed, super-scalar, super-pipelined CPU in our sheds. (And the power consumption of you could! ๐ฅ)
Now that I am thinking about it, though, I wonder what actually would be achievable for an enthusiastic amateur with means? For instance, would it be plausible for them to make an actual 6502 chip? At what point in the history of silicon manufacturing did cost and complexity make it utterly unachievable outside of the existing players in the industry?
@GerardThornley @tubetime @Amorpheus @catsalad
i do think in a fediverse world and beyond that peer to peer world, where people leave big tech and embrace self custody, may it be through self hosting (if ppl got the skills) or through embracing peer to peer apps where their identity is represented by a "seed phrase" that represents thei cryptographic keypair, which they write down and store away safely.
...hardware you can trust in is vital, even if it is slow, so ppl will buy open hardware๐
@GerardThornley @tubetime @serapath @catsalad ARM is a good example. They just design circuitry, they do not fabricate it. Design is in the grasp of small expert groups and even individuals, but fabrication is only possible if you accumulate enough financial support.
Make your design and propose it. If you get enough supporters, let dedicated fabs produce it.
Cat ๐๐ฅ (D.Burch) 
โ 
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