Chipflasher’s Road towards RYF
Update as of 2018, 15th of May
Hurray! Zerocat’s Chipflasher has been certified with FSF’s Respects-Your-Freedom (RYF) Certificate! A first bunch of devices – personally signed – is now available in our new Shop as a Limited Edition.
Press releases are sent around by FSF and Zerocat, starting at 10am Boston Time and 4pm Berlin Time. See FSF’s Newsletter!
Update as of 2018, 7th of May
The road to go along turned out to be bumpy, really. Several issues had to get fixed. Not only the device and its sources were reviewed, but the way of distribution of the actual product had to comply with FSF’s high requirements as well.
But we did it! Our shop proposal was not just approved by the RYF Compliance Team, they even stated “looks great!”. As a result, we decide to immediatly start the public launch of the RYF-certified product. First ten devices – personally signed – are now offered as a Limited Edition. The elevated initial price helps us to set up a small scale series production. Please see our Shop and help funding the project with your purchase!
Update as of 2018, 7th of April
It turns out that Zerocat’s online shop at the Fairmondo Sales Platform is not going to meet FSF’s strong requirements regarding free software licenses. Furthermore, shop maintenance is difficult due to a somewhat stiff interface and slow communication with Fairmondo, so in the end I agree to set up Zerocat’s own fully free-software compliant storefront.
As of today, a storefront proposal has been presented to the FSF in conjunction with a complete move of Zerocat’s domains to a different server. Care has been taken to involve nothing but free-software and as few JavaScript as possible.
As a result, I am looking forward to get back on track towards RYF Certification together with the RYF Compliance Team. The shop at Fairmondo will be suspended as soon as Zerocat’s new storefront gets approved.
Setting up the new server and the storefront proposal has been made possible by financial help of my family and technical assistance of a new team member. Dear folks, thank you very much!
Update as of 2018, 3rd of February
The month of january has been dedicated to discuss RYF related issues with FSF in detail. We fixed the issues, tagged the sources and shipped a fully elaborated sample package to the FSF...
In parallel, the certification process requires all websites related to the product to be reviewed as well. We had to clarify the license situation of JavaScript files for Zerocat’s website, same as for the Fairmondo platform which we use to set up the flasher’s sales page.
Fairmondo is a free software project on its own, but not everything in regards to proper free license accounting is free of bugs, unfortunately. Running Fairmondo with all JavaScript files disabled is what we suggest as a workaround – and that is what we are asking the FSF to accept ;-)
Once the certificate is granted, we will set up a crowdfunding campaign in order to achieve a first series production based on pre-orders. That is what we intended much earlier, but we have to admit that things took more time than expected. Please stay with us and keep supporting us, so that we gain the standing that is obviously required.
Update as of January 2018
Our most recent update has been pushed and tagged with 'v0.4.2' – which turns out to be a very interesting version number (“42” = Answer to the Ultimate Question of Live??). We freeze development now and keep on asking FSF for certification. Once this product is certified, I will hurry up to set up the crowdfunding campaign for production together with CrowdSupply, Statement-of-Work already signed.
Fixes as of December 2017
I fixed as many issues as possible within short and tagged the new version with tag “v0.4.1” in the chipflasher’s git repository. I notified both, CrowdSupply and FSF, and the RYF Certification is now pending...
In parallel, I dare to set up the crowdfunding campaign together with CrowdSupply, and as soon as my material reaches a mature state, I am looking forward to discuss the public launch with all parties involved.
Things are difficult to foresee, as all partners involved have to agree. With your help, I hopefully gain the long-term standing to see a resounding success for the Free-Design Chipflasher Do-it-Yourself Hardware Tool, finally.
Meanwhile, please help to promote this call for crowdfunding! Let’s get the Chipflasher onto the FSF Website!
Ad-hoc Support as of November 2017
My Call for Ad-hoc Support in the Scale of €2000,- until 1st of December 2017 was very well supported — thank you! As a reference, see this list of contributions:
- F.Z. provides his ThinkPad X230 for further development and spends €100,-
- M.P. spends her ThinkPad T60 for experiments
- H.K. matches all funds up to €400,-
- F.M. spends an extraordinary sum of €1.000,-
- M.E. sends €400,- and is going to place a pre-order during the campaign
- A.S. spends €200,- and honors the overall project presentation
- H.S. spends €100,-
- G.T. spends €100,- and offers very supportive words:
„Euer Projekt und die Ansätze dahinter sind ganz ganz große Klasse. Und sogar für ein gutes Konto und einen tollen Marktplatz habt ihr euch entschieden; Einfach Perfekt.“ — G.T.
What about you? Your help will be very much appreciated, no matter which scale, no matter which date. Please get in touch to see how you might help in-between!