[Arm-netbook] Slowly but surely...

[Gordan Bobic]

On 07/09/2012 08:25 PM, lkcl luke wrote:
> On Mon, Jul 9, 2012 at 7:40 PM, Gordan Bobic<gordan at bobich.net>  wrote:
>
>> And there we have a textbook example of why being a freetard is
>> completely uneconomical. You would have easily made back more than $10K
>> over the past year selling the modules.
>
>   ... but the people who would be so paid would feel resentment at
> having been left out, having been paid a tiny fraction of what the
> project utlimately could make.

I don't really agree. I'm happy to work for my normal day rate. In fact, 
other than on my own projects, I never would have even considered taking 
shares in lieu of of day rate.

My view is that if somebody believes in what they are doing, they should 
believe in it enough to raise the relevant funding and pay the people 
who are going to make it happen, rather than take the "weasely" way out 
of offering them shares which, in cases of most startups, turn out to be 
worthless a few months down the line. Given the ratio of startups that 
don't fold, statisticall the smart money is on getting paid a day rate 
rather than partaking in the risk.

>> If, OTOH, you are going to use the profits from the first series of
>> EOMAs (assuming anybody still wants them by the time they actually
>> become available) to pay somebody to develop the second series in a
>> timely fashion,
>
>   *hand-waving* - yes, i'd thought about that: see above however.
> expediency vs encouraging people to collaborate and benefit from the
> fruits of their collaboration?  it's a tough call: we'll have to do an
> analysis on a case-by-case basis.
>
>   one SoC manufacturer we're talking with for example they are quite
> likely to *have* to do the EOMA68 card themselves, simply because
> they're, well... a bit paranoid.  so that CPU Card would be "for
> free".  one EOMA68 CPU Card - the iMX53 one - we've managed to slot in
> to a client's design requirements, so we (the free software community)
> get an iMX53 EOMA68 CPU Card "for free" in a different way.

Yeah, we get it for free. We just have to pay the retail price to it. 
Great deal, that. ;)

[...]
>   gordan... what the hell's going on??  what's the matter?  i can tell
> there's something _very_ strange going on with you at the moment, but
> because i'm seeing only these emails not anything else, obviously, i
> can't put my finger on it.  i'm seeing "symptoms" not the "cause".

Apologies. You're right. I was out of line. I think my frustration at 
the lack of perceived probability of this turning into an actual product 
any time soon got to me. Especially since 6 months ago we were talking 
about the EOMA alpha cards being available within weeks. I can hardly 
imagine how you must feel about it considering the amount of effort you 
have invested in it.

Gordan