[Arm-netbook] What I have done so far

Sun Jul 24 20:17:40 BST 2016

2016-07-24 17:31 Wolfgang Romey:
>Am Sonntag, 24. Juli 2016, 16:14:43 schrieb Manuel A. Fernandez Montecelo:
>>
>> I read Wolfgang's paragraph a bit differently...  I think that Wolfgang
>> wonders why there are not more pledges / purchasing orders from people
>> *following* the FOSS/libre software;
>
>That is my point.

Well, I have only theories which are worth a dime a dozen, and as much
of a guess as anybody else's...  but it's the end of a hard week and I
want to decompress a bit, so let's go :-)

<disclaimer: the following is IN NO WAY intended to discourage, or imply
"I know better and you should do this or that", etc -- it is just
dumping my thoughts on the matter of why there are no more purchases
from people that one would expect, as Wolfgang wonders>

In no strict order, but to try to organise them in coherent bits of
thought:

1) I think that for many people, without endorsement from FSF's RYF or
   similar, this effort doesn't have enough visibility compared to a
   myriad of other offers around.

   It's not that ARM boards / small devices are unheard of nowadays, as
   they were before the RPi, and it's not even one of the first
   competitors of the RPi that got lots of attention (e.g. Beaglebone).

   Almost anybody interested enough in using one of those has some
   similar device already, so will only purchase if it happens to need
   one or several /in ~8 months from now/ (difficult to guess, though)
   or because one specially wants to support the project, even if it
   will not use one of these immediately.

   Maybe Luke will hate me for telling this, and it's not the same as
   the EOMA by any stretch, but Olimex's oLinuXinos can serve for
   similar purposes with same or similar hardware, and have been
   available for purchase directly for a long time.

2) Related to #1, perhaps many people are still waiting to receive some
   hardware that they crowdfunded/preordered 5 months ago (before even
   learning about EOMA), so they don't have the purchasing/spare
   time/whatever capacity to order a new one.  Think of this OpenPandora
   Pyra, for example.

   Or they do need it today, not in ~8 months, or don't want to wait for
   2 months to know if this campaign is successful or not, and if not,
   then go find somewhere else.

3) Related to #1 and #2, certainly purchasing an EOMA device is not very
   eco-friendly if you have already a bunch of similar devices and they
   are gathering dust in a corner, or you don't have spare cycles or any
   particular use for EOMA devices today or in the near future.

   Sure, EOMA is eco-friendly when looking forward 10 years, if you can
   purchase compatible CPU cards, but not when looking backwards -- what
   does one do with the half dozen devices that are around at home?

   I still have computers from 2000 or before, and even if they use more
   energy, keeping them running for a few years is probably cheaper and
   more eco-friendly (overall footprint) than using an EOMA.  And in
   winter, they do warm the home, so excess energy usage is not very bad
   :-)

4) Allwinner A20 itself is not very good to differentiate from other
   offers: not specially new, not specially suitable for those with a
   special "fetish" for hardware-freedomness (like the Loongson that
   Stallman used --MIPS with expired patents--, or more free/grassroots
   architectures like OpenRISC or RISC-V) or some special purpose device
   (Novena, with FPGAs and all), etc.

   (Although printing your own laptop it really is something special.)

   Allwinner itself didn't get good reputation with the problems of
   hardware integration in the kernel (GPL stuff, old kernels), with the
   thing about the password to root the device (even if it's good from a
   "freedom" point of view), etc.

5) It's does not come as very very cheap (think of RPi or CHIP or so),
   and with currency conversions and shipping and so on, it ends up
   being a bit steep, specially with the devaluation of EUR and GBP vs
   USD in the last few weeks.

6) Network effects and all

7) Slow summer time is slow

So in a way, this device ecosystem and this campaign is for people that
think that EOMA can be a great idea for the future, but:

a) Not very good if you want or need one /today/, or cannot anticipate
   the needs of the next X months/years

b) It is not so absolutely cheap / useless that one doesn't get pissed
   off if one "invests" in the wrong silly idea and looses the money
   (think of SMBC's monocle)

c) It is not enough cool / novel / specialist in ways that would appeal
   to some crowd even if absolutely impractical or too expensive if
   looking at it from a pragmatic PoV ("a SBC based on M68K, the coolest
   ISA ever, woohooo!"; or "the fist OpenRISC / RISC-V!11!1!!!1"; or
   "OMFG, the Jolla/Sailfish tablet!!1!1!")

Still, I don't think that any of the points a-b-c is a guarantee of
anything -- sometimes they click a button for some people and sometimes
they don't.  We usually only hear about the very successful campaigns,
but probably for every extremely successful campaign there are a bunch
that were special in some ways that didn't get lucky.

And still with 1 month to go, I think that there are good chances that
this picks up pace towards the end.  I am hopeful :-)

>> while Luke interprets that Wolfgang
>> is complaining about people *leading* FSF*-related orgs (including
>> Europe, Latin America, etc.; and other countries similar orgs like ANSOL
>> in Portugal or April in France) are not promoting EOMA68 from their orgs
>> as much as they could / should.
>>
>> In any case I think that it's a bit of both... and if it was being
>> promoted prominently by some orgs, specially FSF's Respects Your Freedom
>> campaing, would probably give the campaing a big boost.
>>
>Is there a chance, to get the FSF Respects Your Freedom Certificate in the near
>future?

Luke should know, I don't know if anybody else does.

I think that it would make a real difference and will almost surely mean
the success of the campaign.

Cheers.
-- 
Manuel A. Fernandez Montecelo <manuel.montezelo at gmail.com>