[Wylug-discuss] Eee pc - proprietary badness

[John Leach]

Hi,

I read some bad things about proprietary hardware in the eee pc:

http://cliffhacks.blogspot.com/2007/11/asus-eeepc-first-impressions-and-gpl.html

ASUS have include some binary blobs to make hardware work, which means
it might not be easy to switch distros (which is of course just a
symptom of the fact they are depriving you of your freedom).

Additionally, they appear to have violated the GPL by not releasing
source code that they should have.  This might not be on purpose, but
I'm not sure which explanation I prefer: malice or incompetence.

They also "prevent" you from upgrading the RAM in it.  Prevent is in
quotes, because there is a ram upgrade slot, and it's normal ram you
could purchase and upgrade, but there is a "warranty void" sticker over
the slot.  They plan to release a higher spec version which will likely
come with more ram, so this is an obvious scam to make you buy that.
That link above discussed whether this is illegal to do in the USA, but
I'm not sure about here in the UK.

That said, this shitty state of affairs is probably a tonne better than
if you chose one of the other mini-hardware vendors (excluding OLPC,
which seems to be doing a whole lot right).

Anyone know of any better kit?

John.


On Fri, 2007-12-07 at 13:06 +0000, ALLEN, David wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I have just seen a eee pc. It really is most impressive! I think I
> will try and convince my daughter she would rather have one than an
> ipod for christmas!
> 
> David

-- 
http://johnleach.co.uk