[Arm-netbook] What I have done so far

[fuumind]

I'd like to share my thoughts on this as well. I don't think Luke is
trying to sell us anything. I think he is asking us to finance a part
of his grand plan to reprogram how humanity thinks about consumer
electronics with the goal of making the world a better place. Only
problem for him is he has to dress it up as a sale of products because
that's how the game is rigged.

Luke is doing this because he thinks it is *the right thing* from a
moral perpective, not because he is primarily looking for profit or for
a good time. If he did he would be doing like cocal cola or the candy
industry, or even like the car industry or the food industry and tickle
our wants or needs. Even like the people at Nextthing Co with their
successfull crowdfunding of the CHIP computer (https://www.kickstarter.
com/projects/1598272670/chip-the-worlds-first-9-computer/). They don't
ask people to change the world. They are trying to get a profit from
selling a fun tinkering experience and never mention the fact that
their product is full of blobs, at least not in their marketing. Sure
they would prefer if it was fully libre and recyclable but they are
willing to compromise in order to make it easy for them to have people
spend money.

The question at this stage isn't "How can we make people want to buy
these products?" The question is "How do we gather enough passionate
recruits to get this revolution going?" but that question is hard to
fit into the realities of a marketing campaign for a couple of
products.

Just my 0,05€...

/fuumind

sön 2016-07-24 klockan 20:17 +0100 skrev Manuel A. Fernandez Montecelo:
> 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.