Hello,
I last mentioned EOMA68 on this list in early July, noting that I would have blogged about it, too, but couldn't at the time. Unfortunately, real life got in the way of either following up with the blog volunteers about the blogging service (which I greatly appreciate as a service of the FSFE Fellowship) or actually writing anything about this topic on my blog. In fact, I only wrote about it there recently:
https://blogs.fsfe.org/pboddie/?p=1314
(Reminder: EOMA68 is a standard for modular plug-in computer cards; the campaign offers one kind of card with different operating system choices, plus some devices that can use the card.)
Once again, I may have pledged for rewards in the campaign, but I'm not explicitly endorsing it. Everyone should weigh up the different factors and their own needs when supporting such efforts. However, it is worth noting that there are only 4 days left until the campaign ends:
https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68/micro-desktop
(Here, I am only repeating this because maybe other people had real life intervene on them in July and August, too.)
There has been a range of responses from enthusiasm about the modular computing concept and support for hardware that fully supports Free Software through to criticism about the performance and the ethical record of the system-on-a-chip vendor that happens to be used for the first card. Reading some of the responses, I note that maybe there is some kind of law of public discourse that the more severe the criticism, the less constructive it tends to be.
On this list, there was a discussion about how bad modern x86 derivatives are by enabling surveillance at the hardware level...
http://mail.fsfeurope.org/pipermail/discussion/2016-April/010912.html
...but either people feel completely powerless about it or they like to talk about the situation more than how to alleviate or resolve the situation. Amusingly, all sorts of observations came up about that discussion and I even mentioned one of them here:
https://blogs.fsfe.org/pboddie/?p=1305
(Yes, SPARC might even be a candidate for an alternative hardware platform, but its supporters need to bring finance and people to the effort instead of reminiscing about Sun's glory days. The referenced discussion is, however, rather interesting to read in parts.)
Now, I saw a couple of responses to my previous message, combining the EOMA68 topic with the surveillance topic - SPARC even got a mention! - but maybe July is not a month in which much discussion tends to take place. But I feel that there does need to be a proper discussion about the way forward for Libre Computing (Free Software on Libre Hardware) and how the various communities can deliver sustainable platforms:
* Whether EOMA68 (and its siblings) or something similar (see next point) has a role to play in this, perhaps only as a step towards the eventual goal of a set of platforms we can rely on
* Whether there are other ongoing efforts in this area (not one-offs) that just need more attention than they have been getting
* Whether or when libre CPUs and SoCs might be viable choices for such platforms
* Whether some existing products are good-enough choices for hardware platforms, even if they are not libre hardware or employ encumbered microarchitectures (which a lot of established products do, of course)
There's an interesting summary of processor suitability done for the criteria of EOMA68 that some might find interesting:
https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68/micro-desktop/updates/picking-a-processor
"It should also be pretty clear that there is literally not a single processor that checks every single box! As in, there is not a single processor in the world that is eco-conscious, respects software freedom, is ethical and accessible. This is a pretty insane situation to be in, in the year 2016."
There needs to be a constructive debate about incrementally improving this situation. Instead of "I hate that processor" or "wait for my radical SoC I've just started designing", people need to help find products that uphold software freedom and privacy while also being usable (obtainable, for the most part) for small libre hardware projects. And there needs to be an appreciation that this work is not meant to create the "toy of the month" - a gadget that is fun for a while and then stashed away somewhere - but instead to build an environment where we shouldn't be constantly needing to urgently figure out what kind of hardware we can use that uphold our values.
So, does anyone have any opinion about the kinds of projects (most likely being undertaken already) that need our attention or support? How do you envisage a sustainable computing platform? And since all discussions inevitably lament how much memory Firefox uses these days, how do you envisage a less demanding form of computing being extended to online services?
Sorry for the long message!
Paul
Hi Paul,
Am 22.08.2016 um 19:10 schrieb Paul Boddie:
Hello,
I last mentioned EOMA68 on this list in early July, noting that I would have blogged about it, too, but couldn't at the time. Unfortunately, real life got in the way of either following up with the blog volunteers about the blogging service (which I greatly appreciate as a service of the FSFE Fellowship) or actually writing anything about this topic on my blog. In fact, I only wrote about it there recently:
...
On this list, there was a discussion about how bad modern x86 derivatives are by enabling surveillance at the hardware level...
http://mail.fsfeurope.org/pipermail/discussion/2016-April/010912.html
...but either people feel completely powerless about it or they like to talk about the situation more than how to alleviate or resolve the situation. Amusingly, all sorts of observations came up about that discussion and I even mentioned one of them here:
https://blogs.fsfe.org/pboddie/?p=1305
(Yes, SPARC might even be a candidate for an alternative hardware platform, but its supporters need to bring finance and people to the effort instead of reminiscing about Sun's glory days. The referenced discussion is, however, rather interesting to read in parts.)
...
There's an interesting summary of processor suitability done for the criteria of EOMA68 that some might find interesting:
https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68/micro-desktop/updates/picking-a-processor
"It should also be pretty clear that there is literally not a single processor that checks every single box! As in, there is not a single processor in the world that is eco-conscious, respects software freedom, is ethical and accessible. This is a pretty insane situation to be in, in the year 2016."
There needs to be a constructive debate about incrementally improving this situation. Instead of "I hate that processor" or "wait for my radical SoC I've just started designing", people need to help find products that uphold software freedom and privacy while also being usable (obtainable, for the most part) for small libre hardware projects. And there needs to be an appreciation that this work is not meant to create the "toy of the month" - a gadget that is fun for a while and then stashed away somewhere - but instead to build an environment where we shouldn't be constantly needing to urgently figure out what kind of hardware we can use that uphold our values.
So, does anyone have any opinion about the kinds of projects (most likely being undertaken already) that need our attention or support? How do you envisage a sustainable computing platform? And since all discussions inevitably lament how much memory Firefox uses these days, how do you envisage a less demanding form of computing being extended to online services?
Sorry for the long message!
In contrary, I thank you for writing that excellent summary!
Michael
El Mon, Aug 22, 2016 at 07:10:13PM +0200, Paul Boddie deia:
Once again, I may have pledged for rewards in the campaign, but I'm not explicitly endorsing it. Everyone should weigh up the different factors and their own needs when supporting such efforts. However, it is worth noting that there are only 4 days left until the campaign ends:
ACK, the RYF or money back guarantee helps (I don't usually see the same hardware being offered with different software where only one option is RYF _and_ the RYF option getting more than double the demand than the next most popular option, that already says something of the community-to-be). But it's already difficult to tell somebody else what to spend their money on when you have used the device for a few months, in any crowdfunding it is wiser to just spread the word and let people make their own minds about it.
There has been a range of responses from enthusiasm about the modular computing concept and support for hardware that fully supports Free Software through to criticism about the performance and the ethical record of the system-on-a-chip vendor that happens to be used for the first card. Reading some of the responses, I note that maybe there is some kind of law of public discourse that the more severe the criticism, the less constructive it tends to be.
In some case it's been more constructive than others. Funny thing is that when an evil corporation launches another evil product, you can hardly hear some boohs somewhere, not because everybody likes it, but because everybody expected something of the kind. But when someone says to be trying to sell something good in an ethical way, everybody instantly disbelieves it so they're going to point out any possible objection to prove it is not perfect. That's useful to reinforce their inductive reasoning and saves them the trouble of having to apply deduction to every news piece they come across. In other words, they know these things don't happen, so they simply find confirmation of their knowledge and share it.
And to be honest, when something looks too good to be true it usually isn't true. The lack of features/performance and reputation of the SOC vendor, among other things, is what makes it not too good to be true, so somewhat likely to eventually be true.
- Whether EOMA68 (and its siblings) or something similar (see next point) has
a role to play in this, perhaps only as a step towards the eventual goal of a set of platforms we can rely on
I don't know if the EOMA-68 spec has much future or too little. But I think it has the potential to start (with others) a certain market niche for freedom respecting hardware. Manufacturing is a high volume thing, so it is very difficult to compete. They're aiming at a product that does not exist, so it does not have competitors already (the general concept is similar to phoneblocks, or even many dual Computer-on-module and peripheral mainboard, but the standarisation idea is not really available anywhere else). Incumbents could enter the market if they find a business there, but Luke is trying to define its market in a way that is less profitable long term for incumbents than their already existing markets, so is somewhat less likely.
Accordingly, the market should also be little profitable for Luke. But then it's a curious moment to start it:
- There's a certain saturation in the conventional market (first PC sales went down, then laptops, then tablets... )
- There's some slow down in moore law.
- There have been difficulty in finding new needs for the ever higher computing power of new devices, so "good enough" computing has a better chance than historically.
- There's unprecedented hindrances and antifeatures in most consumer available hardware (up to now you could more or less find some hardware to run with free software, now most software is designed to try to stop you from loading any free software or at least to stop you running 100% free software). Up to now we could use mainstream hardware, pay the same than anyone else for our computers, but use them in more or less freedom. But now those times are ending. Soon you'll have to go for libre hardware, free software, decentralized or P2P services and open content or go for closed hardware, proprietary software, centralized services and DRMed content. The first market may be small or non-existing depending on what we can do, but I find very difficult to prevent the second. I imagine unlikely the prices to be the same for both.
For me it is difficult to foresee whether EOMA-68 will fly, if it will last lots of time or be replaced by something else (hopefully as good or better), an evolution of the concept like EOMA-200 or whatever or something completely different. But I think it is already helping by discovering some demand for something like it. 1414 pledges.
- Whether there are other ongoing efforts in this area (not one-offs) that
just need more attention than they have been getting
A part from what you list there are efforts around minifree, libreboot and the like. That is, people can get fed up of buying new faster hardware with more antifeatures, and start recycling older hardware from the times when there were less and weaker antifeatures. This is intuitively a lot of effort and eventually will run out of usable hardware, but has several advantadges:
- you reap the benefits of mass production (with some discount since the hardware is old).
- you boycott current offerings. Instead of debating whether to buy a device with chips from an evil vendor or from another vendor that is evil in some other way, you buy second hand from another consumer and no new sales for the companies causing the problems.
- you get down of the treadmill instead of running ever faster. In as much as we struggle for computers as fast as mainstream we will be allowing society to keep pushing ever weightier content at us. At some point you simply have to tell your friends to not send you 12MB fotos of their holidays, tell your TV station that you don't really need 4K and will opt for lower res, tell your supermarket that you don't really need cloud connected mass-spectrometers in microchips inside your toilet paper, etc.
- off-topic benefits like waste reduction, less resource depletion, etc.
- Whether or when libre CPUs and SoCs might be viable choices for such
platforms
Hopefully one day they will. I don't know much about chip manufacturing but it looks like this needs the niche market bigger than it is now (or a chip that is attractive in different markets). I'd love to be wrong. In any case trying it is very useful in itself, regardless of whether it has more or less success. And those putting money on it probably know their chances better than I do.
- Whether some existing products are good-enough choices for hardware
platforms, even if they are not libre hardware or employ encumbered microarchitectures (which a lot of established products do, of course)
I don't know all existing products, but my experience is that almost none of the products you can easily buy new are useful. Interesting things are few and far between, in crowdfunding experiments, to be bought from the other side of the planet during certain time window, ever uncertain of their ability to sustain a community that keeps the thing alive... And of course if you get free software you don't get fair trade, or local economy, anonymous shopping, or your preferred payment options, or environmental sustainability or ...
I like the pyra-handheld.com though. It's a pity that they don't have a RYF version, but with a wifi USB dongle you could use it in freedom. It might eventually get 2d acceleration, but I don't know about video acceleration.
There's an interesting summary of processor suitability done for the criteria of EOMA68 that some might find interesting:
https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68/micro-desktop/updates/picking-a-processor
"It should also be pretty clear that there is literally not a single processor that checks every single box! As in, there is not a single processor in the world that is eco-conscious, respects software freedom, is ethical and accessible. This is a pretty insane situation to be in, in the year 2016."
If the campaign failed, but the effort had spread awareness of this kind of obscure (to the general population) oligopoly and depressing products, it would already have been useful.
I was in fact surprised that so many people knew Allwinner as GPL violators. I'm also finding more people aware of secure boot, signed bootloaders and so on. So the word slowly spreads.
There needs to be a constructive debate about incrementally improving this situation. Instead of "I hate that processor" or "wait for my radical SoC I've just started designing", people need to help find products that uphold software freedom and privacy while also being usable (obtainable, for the most part) for small libre hardware projects. And there needs to be an appreciation that this work is not meant to create the "toy of the month" - a gadget that is fun for a while and then stashed away somewhere - but instead to build an environment where we shouldn't be constantly needing to urgently figure out what kind of hardware we can use that uphold our values.
Well some kind of wiki to document each chip and it's problems for low volume RYF libre hardware (MOQ, GPL violations, proprietary drivers, NDAs, etc.) would be something.
Just one quick note: for people hating Allwinner, there's the option to get an EOMA-68 laptop with a pass-through card. This does not work as a computer but can be plugged to something you have and use the "laptop" as a USB keyboard and mouse and HDMI screen. So you can plug your preferred SBC, HDMI stick, mobile phone or add a second screen to your laptop. Then you may use one less CPU and still enjoy a laptop form factor. And upgrade to a full cableless laptop if one day they sell a computer card with a CPU you don't boycott.
The campaign is now accelerating at 75% of funds and 95% of days, it must have been foresseen for 250 cards and 250 laptops. But the creator has stated that it would be viable with other quantities. Since there are already 487 (+ 40?) cards and some of the critical laptop components are also required for other products (like micro-desktop or breakout board) it seems the savings in one side could compensate the loses in the other if they get at least 100 orders for laptops (they're now at 97). So requesting a laptop kit may be more useful to the campaign (but more expensive for the backer) than requesting something else. In theory they shouldn't get any money if they don't reach 100% of pledges (36775$ left in 3 days, difficult), but in practice if the requested items can be produced with the pledged money, something should be possible to arrange.
I don't have an issue with people hating a processor. I think most new processors have earned hate, and hate is fine as long as you redirect it to good endeavours. I can understand boycotting Allwinner. And if then they boycott all the rest much the better. If they boycott Allwinner and buy Intel then I fail to understand.
I mean they stopped selling computers and they only sell traps. Fine, we stop buying computers. That'd be sane. Not always easy, but sane. At least saner that this addiction to ever more performance and features, at whatever privacy and control prices.
So, does anyone have any opinion about the kinds of projects (most likely being undertaken already) that need our attention or support?
I don't know. RISC-V ?
How do you envisage a sustainable computing platform?
I guess I'd need to envisage multiple sustainable fabs. That's the hard part. I think Open Source Ecology has not got there yet.
And since all discussions inevitably lament how much memory Firefox uses these days, how do you envisage a less demanding form of computing being extended to online services?
Err... an army of anti-sect therapists ?
Sorry for the long message!
long ?
On Tuesday 23. August 2016 20.34.19 Xavi Drudis Ferran wrote:
[Levels of criticism of well-meaning projects...]
In some case it's been more constructive than others. Funny thing is that when an evil corporation launches another evil product, you can hardly hear some boohs somewhere, not because everybody likes it, but because everybody expected something of the kind. But when someone says to be trying to sell something good in an ethical way, everybody instantly disbelieves it so they're going to point out any possible objection to prove it is not perfect. That's useful to reinforce their inductive reasoning and saves them the trouble of having to apply deduction to every news piece they come across. In other words, they know these things don't happen, so they simply find confirmation of their knowledge and share it.
That's a good insight. One could just say that, for the most part, people just believe what they already want to - or care to - believe.
Take the original Raspberry Pi, not because I have anything against the people who made it, but because it's a well-known example of a number of things. Most people who bought it probably didn't care about things like binary blobs, and when such things became a talking point, the Foundation downplayed it [1], which probably satisfied most people.
When enough people complained, the source code for the Linux device driver for the graphics stack was released [2], which probably satisfied most people.
When enough people pointed out that this device driver was just sending messages to an entirely separate operating system running on its own separate processor inside the SoC [3], the Foundation downplayed it, which probably satisfied most people.
When enough people got restless about that, the Foundation announced that source code was available [4] (but actually only for the graphics functionality on the separate operating system), which probably satisfied most people.
As far as I can tell, the rest of the proprietary binary is still secret. Interestingly, it appears to be based on ThreadX [5] which also features in the Intel Management Engine technology, where not even mighty Intel is allowed to release the code [6].
In effect, the Foundation have "aimed low" but "claimed high", and their target audience are generally happy to go along with it rather than change their worldview. (They don't seem to care as much about the same kind of ethical issues as most people reading this list.)
Meanwhile, the Purism laptop campaigns, worthy as they and their instigators undoubtedly are, rely on their privacy and freedom credentials to promote their products. However, upon concerns being aired about Intel Management Engine and the surveillance dangers, the response has been to build a petition to get Intel to release the source code of such technologies [7]. Again, this may satisfy most people in their audience, but a more demanding audience would realise the most likely outcome [8].
(But to Purism's credit, they do acknowledge other products that are not encumbered by such things, including those ThinkPad-based products mentioned in your - Xavi's - message.)
I guess the conclusion is that if you have low standards, people tend to hold you to even lower standards, whereas if you have high standards, people tend to hold you to even higher standards. But it actually isn't helpful if people expect perfection in an imperfect world, and it can be especially infuriating if they aren't really willing to improve the world, either.
Paul
[1] https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/a-birthday-present-from- broadcom/#comment-495042
[2] https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/open-source-arm-userspace/
[3] http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/10/all-code-on- raspberry-pis-arm-chip-now-open-source/
[4] https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/a-birthday-present-from-broadcom/
[5] https://lwn.net/Articles/588966/
[6] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11427432
There needs to be a constructive debate about incrementally improving this situation. Instead of "I hate that processor" or "wait for my radical SoC I've just started designing", people need to help find products that uphold software freedom and privacy while also being usable (obtainable, for the most part) for small libre hardware projects. And there needs to be an appreciation that this work is not meant to create the "toy of the month" - a gadget that is fun for a while and then stashed away somewhere - but instead to build an environment where we shouldn't be constantly needing to urgently figure out what kind of hardware we can use that uphold our values.
I'm too uninformed on hardware design to be able to say much, but I find that in the discussions I've seen it boils down to :
- identifying components (chips) that are not encumbered by GPL-violations, proprietary drivers, tivoization, DRM, or signature verfication not controllable by the user.
- establishing enough of a relationship with the chip vendors to obtain:
- datasheets and technical info (in principle without NDAs, I don't know if there are "light" NDAs that might be acceptable, but I think not)
- software, like drivers or firmware, under free licenses (ideally mainlined).
- the needed quantity of chips at an affordable enough price.
I wonder if it would be conceivable to create some institution that defines some clear criterium for components procurement, possibly some criteria for libre hardware projects served, and continually investigates the market and then pools demand from different libre hardware projects to increase order quantities. It might also pool access to production facilities like PCB manufacturing or the like, but I find that harder, because the designs are going to be different, so manufacturers possibky won't offer better deals just for bringing a bunch of smallish different jobs.
You could add here more off-topic-here but important requirements such as labour conditions, conflict-free minerals, responsible tax behaviour, carbon impact, corporate social responsability, etc.
If achievable this might help libre hardware projects overcome some of the price and availability problems, and could also help concentrate driver mainlining and software efforts to a less diverse set of components so that one can hope for better support. Better support should lead to more sales for the component manufacturer (to the institution partners or other customers) and could progressively improve the institution negotiating margin. It might also encourage libre hardware projects to collaborate earlier in the design phase instead of publishing the design at the end when it is ready for production.
The institution could be a more formal organisation with legal entity, budget and ability to enter into contracts or could be some wiki somewhere where different tinkerers commit different efforts as best they can and finally any pooling of demand depends on the trust among the participants.
But I repeat, it is surely easier said that done and there are probably hundreds of reasons unknown to me that make it inviable or very unlikely. And even if possible, it'd still take someone to start it. Or maybe it even has been tried and I haven't heard of it.
On Wednesday 24. August 2016 18.01.07 Xavi Drudis Ferran wrote:
I'm too uninformed on hardware design to be able to say much, but I find that in the discussions I've seen it boils down to :
- identifying components (chips) that are not encumbered by
GPL-violations, proprietary drivers, tivoization, DRM, or signature verfication not controllable by the user.
I think Luke did a nice job summarising some of these things in the "Picking a Processor" update:
https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68/micro-desktop/updates/picking-a-processor
Of course, a lot of arguments are generated by certain things that can be interpreted in more than one way. For instance, Allwinner, and the company's licence violations involving code that won't even be used in this campaign's products, gets people angry about that company's attitude to copyright law.
However, the copyright holders of Linux (or of the other affected software that is actually not used in this campaign's products), including major corporations also belonging to the Linux Foundation, don't seem to be bothered enough to take action. Meanwhile, a fully Free Software distribution is being offered to run on the A20.
So, on the one hand, the corporate behaviour is poor (albeit no different from a lot of the other SoC vendors such as Mediatek, apparently), but the actual Free Software support is good (probably a lot better than Mediatek, going by things I've read). People can decide for themselves where their tolerance lies with regard to the situation if suitably described.
- establishing enough of a relationship with the chip vendors to
obtain:
datasheets and technical info (in principle without NDAs, I don't know if there are "light" NDAs that might be acceptable, but I think not)
software, like drivers or firmware, under free licenses (ideally
mainlined).
- the needed quantity of chips at an affordable enough price.
I think there was a recent discussion about datasheets and "light" datasheets where the latter cannot possibly be all there is for technical documentation. I know that one SoC/CPU vendor has datasheets and "programming manuals" where the latter are generally not available but seem to "do the rounds" anyway, providing the actual information you would need to know how to use the hardware. This kind of distinction is definitely worth encoding in any summary.
Things like driver and firmware availability are also important, and mainlining is also very pertinent. Linux doesn't make mainlining that easy from what I've seen, especially when the starting point may well be vendor- written code that was based on an old kernel and done in the vendor's own "get it done" style, and that restricts the ability to track kernel upgrades.
And yes, the last point above - the minimum order quantity (MOQ) - is the thing that a lot of people don't understand. Luke doesn't even mention that in his table, but as I mentioned in my blog post, such things can completely sink a small-scale hardware effort when the vendor insists that the project place an order for a million SoCs. (Meanwhile, you can buy certain products like the A20 individually from some resellers.)
I wonder if it would be conceivable to create some institution that defines some clear criterium for components procurement, possibly some criteria for libre hardware projects served, and continually investigates the market and then pools demand from different libre hardware projects to increase order quantities. It might also pool access to production facilities like PCB manufacturing or the like, but I find that harder, because the designs are going to be different, so manufacturers possibky won't offer better deals just for bringing a bunch of smallish different jobs.
The idea of pooling is very interesting - the kind of group purchasing thing that took off briefly with more general "consumer goods" - and it is even being done informally: the Neo900 and GTA04 projects have pooled their SoC purchases, as I understand it, meaning that the latter project can offer an upgrade for little or no additional cost purely because the former had a more demanding minimum specification, found a suitable product (compatible with the OMAP-based SoC used in both projects), and then persuaded the latter to get on board.
PCB pooling is sort of done already, too. Organisations like Fritzing effectively batch numerous different designs and put them all on the same panel, charging by the area needed by each design in order to cover the necessary costs. Other services do this, too, perhaps with more of an emphasis on price. Commercial 3D-printing services like Shapeways have volume- and shape-related pricing so that they can maximise the number of designs that get made in each print run (and receive quite a few complaints when they change the pricing model because some designs may go up considerably in price as a result).
Of course, there's an argument for more standardisation so that PCB pooling might well involve the production of more identical designs which might then be produced in a more typical and less expensive way (without the need to identify different designs, trim the boards, incur a certain amount of unnecessary waste, and so on).
You could add here more off-topic-here but important requirements such as labour conditions, conflict-free minerals, responsible tax behaviour, carbon impact, corporate social responsability, etc.
Here, although I think initiatives like Fairphone have done good work, there is a lot of data that will be difficult to obtain without regulators and regulations becoming involved. But it would be nice to encourage transparency, certainly.
If achievable this might help libre hardware projects overcome some of the price and availability problems, and could also help concentrate driver mainlining and software efforts to a less diverse set of components so that one can hope for better support. Better support should lead to more sales for the component manufacturer (to the institution partners or other customers) and could progressively improve the institution negotiating margin. It might also encourage libre hardware projects to collaborate earlier in the design phase instead of publishing the design at the end when it is ready for production.
I agree with you here completely. The thing I like about EOMA68 (and the other EOMA concepts) is that it's about standardising designs so that people aren't doing yet another different-looking board that offers similar capabilities and hardware to previous boards but which can't be used with the accessories and peripherals of those other boards. Instead, people can make computer cards that work with existing peripherals and peripherals that work with existing computer cards.
The institution could be a more formal organisation with legal entity, budget and ability to enter into contracts or could be some wiki somewhere where different tinkerers commit different efforts as best they can and finally any pooling of demand depends on the trust among the participants.
But I repeat, it is surely easier said that done and there are probably hundreds of reasons unknown to me that make it inviable or very unlikely. And even if possible, it'd still take someone to start it. Or maybe it even has been tried and I haven't heard of it.
I am quite sure variants have been done of this kind of thing, and most definitely at different levels and in different areas: purchase pooling, production pooling, and so on. There may even have been some kind of site that combined some of these things - it sounds really quite familiar - but I can't dig up any notes I might have made about it.
Even collaborating to order through supposedly more expensive resellers (like Digikey and Mouser) might be worthwhile if there are "price breaks", meaning that larger orders give lower pricing, but I don't know what the legal consequences of this would be, whether projects would need to be participants in the coordinating entity, or whatever else might need considering with regard to any warranty coverage or other things where the manufacturer might only consider the coordinating entity as the purchaser.
But even some kind of clearing house for projects, as opposed to a fully- automated solution, would be beneficial, certainly.
Paul