While schematics are available, board layout for the Pi is not, and I see precisely no reasons for not distributing it openly. Raspberry Pi has nothing to do wi

While schematics are available, board layout for the Pi is not, and I see precisely no reasons for not distributing it openly. Raspberry Pi has nothing to do with open hardware. The whole system cannot function without the GPU as it’s the first component to boot and controls some vital peripherals, and the GPU can only work with a closed-source firmware. Oh, and before calling this a conspiracy theory, take a look at the sister site of Pi Foundation. That’s right: instead of promoting free, open and royalty-free standards like WebM, the Foundation sells licenses for two proprietary and obsolete video encoders. Also, if you want the Foundation to send more documentation to you, they require you to provide a business model. This has nothing to do with education and everything with marketing. Fortunately, not Beagle Board nor ODROID-X require GPU drivers (or, for that matter, any proprietary code or binaries at all) for regular operation. You’d only need them for rendering accelerated graphics. If you are looking to develop truly open hardware, take a look at Milkymist One. It isn’t cheap, but is worth way more than its cost. If you are looking for a more sane alternative to Pi, consider buying Texas Instruments Beagle Board or Samsung ODROID-X. Both vendors have released complete documentation for the SoC (except for the graphics processor, described above), and are generally more friendly to open-source community than Broadcom. http://whitequark.org/blog/2012/09/25/why-raspberry-pi-is-unsuitable-for-education/ http://whitequark.org/blog/2012/09/25/why-raspberry-pi-is-un...