From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Michael Tremer To: development@lists.ipfire.org Subject: Re: Our Response To PC Engines Open-Source Firmware Sponsorship Discontinuation Date: Fri, 03 Feb 2023 11:21:37 +0100 Message-ID: In-Reply-To: <35fc0380-b8e2-a6e9-9530-34f818357b6c@ipfire.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="===============3766792853939930240==" List-Id: --===============3766792853939930240== Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Hello Bernhard, Thank you for forwarding this. I did not see any kind of announcement whatsoe= ver. But a couple of weeks ago, I reached out to PC Engines to find out more and w= as told that they no longer sponsor these updates. The email that you forward= ed is now giving us a little bit more context. > On 3 Feb 2023, at 10:16, Bernhard Bitsch wrote: >=20 > Hi, >=20 > having the functionality of APU firmware updates, the appended announcement= brings up the question how to deal with this. > If there will be a paid subscription, This is the first time I hear from this. As you know, my salary is also being= made by creating Open Source software, it is very hard to bring money in the= se days. But I do not see a subscription to a BIOS firmware to be a successfu= l business model: * Many (if not most) people do not consider a BIOS updatable. Most machines t= hat are bought are being used with the BIOS/firmware they come with and that = is it. It simply isn=E2=80=99t on people=E2=80=99s radar. * On top of that, Intel Management Engine and some other network activated ga= rbage aside, there are not many security related issues in BIOSes. So people = don=E2=80=99t monitor this or upgrade. * There are also only very few advantages in upgrading your BIOS. Very minor = performance improvements, etc. I have never updated a machine and felt like i= t unleashed the beast. * Those points above are basically just there to show that people don=E2=80= =99t care. The average company simply has too much hardware out there in too = many different revisions to deal with it. Considering the (practically non-ex= istent) advantage of any updates. Why would they care? * However that does not mean that BIOS updates should not be available, becau= se there *are* problems that have to be solved sooner or later. * And last but not least, I see this as the responsibility of the manufacture= r of the board. It is being sold ready to run an operating system, and so it = should bring anything it needs to actually run a bootloader. After that, it i= s responsibility of the distribution. As many SBC vendors do not provide this (and seem to be getting away with it = just fine) is probably the inspiration for this case. However, it is indeed n= ot a very good one, because proper firmware support is helping me to make a b= uying decision. I do not at all believe in paying some extra money on a subsc= ription basis for some product that I intend to only buy once. > - must each single user subscribe, IPFire delivers the framework only > - can there be a subscription by IPFire, the updates are made the same way = as now? I don=E2=80=99t think that we will purchase anything at this point. There sim= ply is no budget, and I do not consider us to be the people who should take c= are of this. I know what kind of money PC Engines has spent on those updates, and I do not= think that this amount of money is available any more through the community. So I suppose we are currently locked to the version that we are on, but I do = not see the harm in this. And now you can all throw the stones at me=E2=80=A6 Best, -Michael >=20 > Regards, > Bernhard --===============3766792853939930240==--