On Wed, 6 Sep 2017 at 15:58:17 +0100
Arnt Gulbrandsen <arnt@???> wrote:

> Alessandro Selli writes:
> > What makes you think IBM is more trustable than Intel? Who, other than
> > IBM, produces Power8 CPUs? Are the blueprints publicly available?
>
> You're just raising the bar to the point where noone can possibly build an
> acceptable product.

I'm raising the hardware bar to the same level of free/opensource software.
If you find acceptable using proprietary hardware, then you could as well
use proprietary software. If you trust FOSS because it's auditable (at least
in principle), then I expect you not to place your blind trust to
prioprietary hardware because auditing it is too hard.

In the past this was not too big an issue, as CPUs were simple enought
that undocumented instructions or registers were discovered the sooner or the
later. Today it's a whole different matter, and hardware now weights almost
(?) as much as software as far as freedom and privacy matter.

The only CPU that comes somewhat close to meet the open hardware criteria
that I know of is the Opensparc cpu. Strangely, no devices of mass production
are based on that platform.

Alessandro