[Fsuk-manchester] Fwd: By March 1st: Help Raptor Engineering make this motherboard run freely

[John Rooke]

-------- Forwarded Message --------
Subject:        By March 1st: Help Raptor Engineering make this motherboard
run freely
Date:   Fri, 24 Feb 2017 18:13:49 -0500
From:   Donald Robertson, III, FSF <address@hidden>
Reply-To:       Donald Robertson, III, FSF <address@hidden>
To:     John Rooke <address@hidden>



Free Software Foundation

Dear John Rooke,

Raptor Engineering has been hard at work trying to fund the creation of
hardware that comes with only free software. Their latest target is
helping to port OpenBMC to the ASUS KGPE-D16
<https://www.raptorengineering.com/coreboot/kgpe-d16-bmc-port-offer.php>,
a mainboard for workstations and servers. While the board currently can
be used with Libreboot or Coreboot, the Baseboard Management Controller
(BMC) currently requires a proprietary blob to function. This limits
some of the board's functionality for users of a fully free system. By
porting OpenBMC to the board, Raptor Engineering hopes to re-enable that
functionality, particularly remote management. But they just need a
little more help from you to make that a reality, and there are only a
few days left before funding ends on March 1st.

They've already met almost 90% of the funding needed to pay for the
port. With just a little over six thousand more in pledges, the goal
will be fully funded. They have several stretch goals as well, that
would likewise be beneficial for software freedom. With only two
thousand more in additional pledges, they will be able to fund work to
enable IPMI-based remote serial console access. And four thousand more
in additional pledges would add BMC-based thermal management.

All of these tasks would go a long ways towards improving the ASUS
KGPE-D16's functionality in a fully free environment, particularly for
data centers. As Raptor Engineering notes on their crowdfunding page:

    Anyone handling more than a couple of servers in a data center type
    environment, or in cases where even a single server is colocated in
    a remote facility, will require the remote management features
    provided by a typical BMC. Not having these features available will
    severely limit the use of server class coreboot systems outside of
    those few corporations that still retain expensive, antiquated
    rack-level hardware power management and console redirect
    systems—not being able to remotely power cycle your server or drop
    to a secure recovery console is a deal breaker for all but the
    smallest, non-production setups.

Funding this project will really give free software a leg up in terms of
capability and reliability. With Raptor Engineering being so close to
accomplishing this goal, will you be the one to help push them over the
edge? Please support their project by visiting their crowdfunding page
<https://www.raptorengineering.com/coreboot/kgpe-d16-bmc-port-offer.php> and
making a pledge by March 1st.

Sincerely,

Donald Robertson, III
Licensing & Compliance Manager

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