This was previously on HN but only got a few comments, and in light of today's confirmation that AMD has no near future plans to open up its PSP it seemed worth

This was previously on HN but only got a few comments, and in light of today's confirmation that AMD has no near future plans to open up its PSP it seemed worth a repost. With AMD's announcement post-2006(Intel)/2013(AMD) x86 will remain with a fully manufacturer-controlled access module for the foreseeable future, ARM is a mess, so OpenPOWER remains worth at least keeping in mind as a hedge. Raptor is apparently trying again with a "Talos II" system [0] based on the upcoming general release of POWER9, though details remain unclear as it won't even be open to pre-order until next month, if they hit their target. It's doubtful, even with the technical community controversy around the ME earlier this year, that there will be much general willingness to pay a significant premium for owner control unless something extremely malicious, widespread, and directly end user noticeable (as something other then some slowdown) takes advantage of a hole or capability related to it. But I don't think it's unreasonable to keep it in the back of our minds, or for big enough open source projects to at least attempt to keep some flexibility with regards to not letting themselves fall too deeply into x86-only design. Also, though it's not free multi-architecture work can healthy for project self-discipline and useful in finding bugs regardless of whether it's ultimately deployed beyond the primary target. ---- 0: http://raptorcs.com/TALOSII/prerelease.php?target=2 http://raptorcs.com/TALOSII/prerelease.php?target=2