Market Forces and Open Hardware

[globaltree]

These are some ultra security concerned parents!

Yes Indeed: our home school group is located in Eugene Oregon, the heart of utlra security concerned parents.   And rightly so, because the following is a philosophical fact: 

Privacy is essential; privacy provides a checks-and-balance to authoritarians, autocrats, and tyrants; anytime a political climate becomes too hostile for humanity, insurrection was made possible because the insurrectionists had private spaces to plot; privacy is essential for human dignity, because nobody is dignified all the time, and we need private bubbles where we can rant and rave like lunatics.

If I am driving around in my car, and I hear some news on the radio about a policy decision I disagree with, I would like to be able to cuss and curse, and say I'm gonna blow stuff up, and assassinate my leaders, in my own harmless undignified rage that I don't think anybody will ever see or hear. Private bubbles are healthy.

We are moving towards a direction where I have to be politically perfect around all my devices, less some national security algorithm detect threatening key words in my harmless maniacal rage, and agents disguised as health officials declare I have whichever virus is going around at the time, and I disappear in quarantined isolation from which I never return:  I don't know how many other concerned parents noticed that the lockdown protocols that were just established around the world in the name of public health, could also be used to quietly eliminate political targets!

I think these parents are correct to be concerned.  I want to create nation-state-proof level of private communication devices simply to defend privacy as a basic human right and need.  

> "The low-price is exactly what puts these devices into the hands of hackers. "

That should read in the past tense, as it is not putting any devices into any hands this year--which is my point.  What if the prices on lcds never return to what they once were?  $300 is still a low price.  You can always lower the price back to what it was, if the market returns to what it was.

>"These devices are simply not yet ready for mainstream adoption and might not ever be"

That's why I have to provision them first for my home-school community.  And, our parents would feel insulted if I ever called them "mainsteam" -- they would be happy to use devices I hacked together.  Unfortunately I was a late bloomer to linux and didn't make it my primary OS until 2006, however, even at that late stage, there were still quirks to work out on most installs:  something wouldn't work --sound, x11, printing, etc., and each install was like a little puzzle that I enjoyed solving.  Now linux installs easier than windows, and everything works (on x86).  But when we get to these pine64 devices, it's like the old days again:  fun puzzles.  My ten-year-old son loves his pinebook, and has no trouble using it, after I set it up for him.  It would be the same for the homeschool families.

These devices, after configured by developer, are ready for alternative adoption -- or at least they could be, if there were being produced...   I represent a unique set of alternative parents who are not infected with consumerism:  however, I agree that these devices might not ever be ready for your average consumer who will want a refund for every glitch, of which this world has too many. 

> "I think generally the devices are available to those who wish to develop them"

I want to develop them:  and they've been "out of stock" for months, which is why I'm bickering here... (sorry about that...) I have other puzzles to go and solve.  Peace.