Hello Bernhard,
Thank you for forwarding this. I did not see any kind of announcement whatsoever.
But a couple of weeks ago, I reached out to PC Engines to find out more and was told that they no longer sponsor these updates. The email that you forwarded is now giving us a little bit more context.
On 3 Feb 2023, at 10:16, Bernhard Bitsch bbitsch@ipfire.org wrote:
Hi,
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 these days. But I do not see a subscription to a BIOS firmware to be a successful business model:
* Many (if not most) people do not consider a BIOS updatable. Most machines that are bought are being used with the BIOS/firmware they come with and that is it. It simply isn’t on people’s radar.
* On top of that, Intel Management Engine and some other network activated garbage aside, there are not many security related issues in BIOSes. So people don’t 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 it unleashed the beast.
* Those points above are basically just there to show that people don’t care. The average company simply has too much hardware out there in too many different revisions to deal with it. Considering the (practically non-existent) advantage of any updates. Why would they care?
* However that does not mean that BIOS updates should not be available, because there *are* problems that have to be solved sooner or later.
* And last but not least, I see this as the responsibility of the manufacturer 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 is 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 not a very good one, because proper firmware support is helping me to make a buying decision. I do not at all believe in paying some extra money on a subscription 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’t think that we will purchase anything at this point. There simply is no budget, and I do not consider us to be the people who should take care 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…
Best, -Michael
Regards, Bernhard<Our Response To PC Engines Open-Source Firmware Sponsorship Discontinuation.eml>