EOMA-68 OLinuXino

[Lorbus]

Hello Everyone,

I only recently discovered your website/company and now firstly have to pay respect to the makers of the OLinuXino. I believe in open source and this is great work!

So here is my question:

Will you by any chance put out a OLinuXino in EOMA-68 form factor (PCMCIA)?

With upcoming projects like this one, this may become quite a market:
https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68/micro-desktop
http://rhombus-tech.net/community_ideas/

And what about EOMA-200? A conversion board to use EOMA-68 SoMs on EOMA-200 carrier boards would also come in handy once there are some EOMA-68 SoCs out.

Edit: I forgot, you might as well make a EOMA-68 carrier board with some standard connectors then
There are already lots of schematics and more to be found here:
http://hands.com/~lkcl/eoma/
http://git.rhombus-tech.net/?p=eoma.git;a=summary


What do you think?

Greetings from Germany
Chris   

[olimex]

EOMA is patented non open source hardware project, so I do not see any advantage to use this format.

I know this project as at a time Linux-Sunxi community was formed around it. The author was looking desperately someone to make his project for free (but he to collect patent royalties after) as he was not capable to do it neither had money to do it by paying to someone. This is why it's not released almost 4-5 years after the announcement.

EOMA author did try to work with several designers, but all they left after understood what are his real intentions. He even 'invited' Olimex to participate i.e. to do it for free and after I refused he posted some nasty BS about Olimex and how we sell devices with GPL violations which is completely untrue.

But even if we do not consider these BS made by EOMA author.

The whole concept to use different processors in same pinout format is not practical, as you have to lose all unique features which processors have and stick just to some limited common features. Needles to say that the software support for all these different processors is different so it's not plug and play replaceable, but need significant efforts each time you change the processor to implement the supporting software.

SOM modules give you access to all resources and are much better approach.

[lkcl]

EOMA is patented non open source hardware project,

... it isn't patented, tsvetan.

I know this project as at a time Linux-Sunxi community was formed around it.

and you were a member of the arm-netbooks list and sponged off of my time and resources then went and sold early products that shipped with Allwinner's GPL-violating bootloaders, tsvetan.

don't think that nobody noticed that you didn't answer the question on the gpl-violations mailing list, trying to ridicule me in front of 20,000 people as a way to avoid answering the question, tsvetan.

The author was looking desperately

there was no desperation, tsvetan.

someone to make his project for free

we were looking for partners, tsvetan

(but he to collect patent royalties after)

there were no demands to collect patent royalties, tsvetan.

This is why it's not released almost 4-5 years after the announcement.

the reason is because i operate on an ethical basis: i will not compromise on software freedom, risking being sued by distributing copyright-illegal products, tsvetan.

EOMA author did try to work with several designers, but all they left after understood what are his real intentions.

they contributed greatly but ultimately wanted to prioritise profit over ethical and even safety considerations, tsvetan.

He even 'invited' Olimex to participate i.e. to do it for free

i invited you to collaborate as a partner and share in the profits, tsvetan.

and after I refused he posted some nasty BS about Olimex and how we sell devices with GPL violations which is completely untrue.

you know that you are lying, tsvetan.  i saw it in your eyes when you came up to the stand at FOSDEM2016.

The whole concept to use different processors in same pinout format is not practical, as you have to lose all unique features which processors have and stick just to some limited common features.

that's right - universal buses.  so that long-term people end up saving money, tsvetan.

Needles to say that the software support for all these different processors is different

where did you get this impression from, tsvetan?

so it's not plug and play replaceable,

where did you get this impression from, tsvetan?

but need significant efforts each time you change the processor to implement the supporting software.

linux-based systems using dynamically-loaded device-tree fragments (a feature that's now supported for beagleboards and other devices with capes / shields) means that there is very little effort involved, tsvetan.

SOM modules give you access to all resources and are much better approach.

if you are prepared to do a total redesign of the main board each time based around a totally different SOM.... yes, you are correct, tsvetan.

you've done a lot for people, bringing them easy-to-use low cost hardware.  but please do not be under any illusions that i operate on an ethical basis, and from your actions and decisions - including posting "to be honest i do not understand what the fuss is over this proprietary binary blobs" on your own A64 laptop blog then deleting it only 2 days later - you clearly do not.

[lkcl]

Hello Everyone,

I only recently discovered your website/company and now firstly have to pay respect to the makers of the OLinuXino. I believe in open source and this is great work!

So here is my question:

Will you by any chance put out a OLinuXino in EOMA-68 form factor (PCMCIA)?

With upcoming projects like this one, this may become quite a market:
https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68/micro-desktop
http://rhombus-tech.net/community_ideas/

hiya chris,

thanks for raising this, and apologies for the replies that you've had to witness.  the EOMA standards are designed for long-term mass-volume production, to change the way that people view their computers to a much less painful experience.

it's very ambitious, and unfortunately tsvetan and others are not really able to understand it, nor understand why staying away from proprietary binaries is also important when it comes to mass-volume numbers.  as we've seen with qualcomm's mistakes recently, there are now 900 *MILLION* android devices out there that are vulnerable at the *hardware* level thanks to a proprietary vendor-locked distribution chain.  that's 900 million items that basically need to go into landfill - a staggering number.

as a way to protect people from the potential dangers of incompatibility ended up killing people with short-circuits and lithium battery fires, we applied for patents early but let them lapse: we found that there was a better strategy.

again, this is not something that is part of olimex's business strategy, as they are targetting engineers and makers as opposed to mass-volume products.

that's fine... i respect what he's achieved, but it comes at a cost, and the cost - of crossing a line of making money by sacrificing principles or ethics - is not one that i can cross.  tsvetan does not like to be reminded that that's what he's done, hence why he has been so vehement in his reply.

i apologise that you have to witness these things.

[JohnS]

How long before these posts are removed or censored?  Hours?

[lkcl]

How long before these posts are removed or censored?  Hours?

yeah i'm curious to see if tsvetan removes them - which if he does, i will have gotten through to him, either way.  even if it cost someone money and business to stick to ethical principles [that you yourself don't hold] you can't go around criticising someone for sticking to those principles that *you don't understand*, and expect it not to have consequences.

the libre community is too small for people not to notice at some point.

[JohnS]

What was the context for it? What had occurred?

Usually it's something like abused the openness...

John

[olimex]

TL;DR; not going to waste time to read not respond but will enlight the situation from my point of view

lckl small nasty and envy creature decided to get rich by creating EOMA standard which he wanted to patent but as has no money I doubt he did this.

EOMA is obsolete, cripled "standard" with no modern fast interface created around A10 later moved to A20

as he is not hardware capable he try to find someone to make his idea for free while he owns the standard and charge royalties, all these discussion people can see on http://lists.phcomp.co.uk/pipermail/arm-netbook/ the archives are there

several people were convinced by his talks, then after a while realizing his true intentions and left

he asked olimex to make the design for him but we had our own ideas to realize so I declined, then he start being bitchy

the only good thing he did is that actually linux-sunxi community was formed first around arm-netbook mailing list, but people soon recognized what he is actually, so linux-sunxi community separated

I enjoy looking aside someone with no electronics background trying to do something not so easy.
After 4 years he is on prototype, meantime world is moving forward, we are at ARM64 now
I see he is running crowd supply campaign for obsolete board with obsolete processor and ugly mechanics, claiming the design is Open Source Hardware, but without any source files available

I wish him good luck, I hope he got funded and see that the sea is not knee deep when he try to arrange production, I know what the final result will be.

this is my last post in this thread as lckl do not deserve more attention