Novena tries to be an open source computing platform. But so far it's only partially open source. Which parts are still not open source and have to be replaced to create a fully open source platform?

The Novena has abundance of documentation, but its mass is overwhelming and it is hard to understand without electronic engineering knowledge, for instance this schematic. So I find myself unable to extract the information to answer my question, although it is probably hidden in this documentation.

  • How can anyone outside their team answer this? – bmargulies Jul 11 '15 at 18:08
  • @bmargulies: As their documentation is open, someone should be able to see what is covered and what not. – Mnementh Jul 11 '15 at 18:10
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    Why do you want someone else to read their documentation for you and type an answer here? – bmargulies Jul 11 '15 at 18:12
  • @Mnementh so you're inviting downvotes for lack of research ;-) – Stephen Kitt Jul 11 '15 at 18:12
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    @StephenKitt: So? Can you provide after two minutes googling a link that answers my question? The documentation contains wiring diagrams. I have difficulties reading this, as I'm not an electrical engineer. – Mnementh Jul 11 '15 at 19:34

The official website containing the documentation can be found here. It seems that they have not made official documentation yet.


The article you linked to, is over a year and a half old. Since then numerous other articles have been released saying it is now fully open source:

So to answer your question:

The entire laptop is open source - with one exception to this being the processor (a Cortex A9 CPU).

  • A Cortex A9 CPU is now open source? Somehow I doubt that. – Mnementh Jul 13 '15 at 13:53
  • Ok, sorry did not see that.. Have double checked now.. and fixed the mistake – Trevor Clarke Jul 13 '15 at 14:06
  • Do you think the processor is the only exception? That was my question about, which parts are not. I'm unsure if these articles checked thoroughly. – Mnementh Jul 13 '15 at 15:06
  • One of your articles write: "For now, the Novena is probably as close as it gets to a truly open source laptop" - as close as it gets != completely – Mnementh Jul 13 '15 at 15:08
  • Yes I do think the processor is the only part. – Trevor Clarke Jul 13 '15 at 19:26

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