[Arm-netbook] What I have done so far

[Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton]

On Mon, Jul 25, 2016 at 12:30 PM, Manuel A. Fernandez Montecelo
<manuel.montezelo at gmail.com> wrote:

> Your analysis from the other e-mail is very interesting.

 thanks.  more a reminder to myself of the urgency.  i'm hearing that
there are countries *actively considering* taking their currency off
of the hyper-inflated U.S. dollar.  if china does that and we don't
have modular computers (and lighter, smarter-designed cars) so that
china can ship *small* parts overseas and the rest is manufactured
locally, we're all royally screwed.


> I was only trying to analyse why people in or close to FOSS and libre
> hardware communities didn't embrace this campaign more enthusiastically.

 i've not been in regular communication with them, i think that's the
main thing.  i've kept in touch with dr stallman but he's
eennnoorrrmously busy.  through my sponsor chris from thinkpenguin we
only began RYF discussions about 3 months before i came over to the
U.S. - just as the

 really what we need[ed] was[is] someone[s] to *specifically* handle
awareness and communications, nothing else.

>  As the e-mail says towards the end:
>
>   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.

 honestly that's the challenge that i invite everyone - as a community
- to stand up and solve.  i can only provide the *opportunity* for
people to go "omg i've been complaining about how hardware
manufacturers have not been delivering, there's someone actually
standing up and saying they'll *MAKE* hardware... why don't i do
something instead of complaining, and wasting my time
reverse-engineering older crapware machines that have already got
end-of-life components in them, we have better things to do, let's get
to it!!"

> But in the end, for the campaign to be successful, it also needs to
> provide products that people want to pledge for (if nothing else, to
> meet the minimum quantity to fabricate the chips that Luke keeps
> mentioning), so everybody needs some kind of hook to engage with the
> project.  It also serves to gauge interest in future products, once the
> campaign ends.

 absolutely,

>
> In your case, you would be thrilled to pledge for the hardware that you
> mention.  You say that it would have to be dirty cheap,

 no i never said that - i said "the modular approach saves people
money".  totally different.

> but many people
> are investing significant amounts of money to get the Neo900 rolling,

 how's the libre firmware working out for them?

> which probably is the closest product in the works resembling what you
> describe.

 mmmm... it's a highly specialist single-board product with a
soldered-down SoC onto the same PCB as the modem and the WIFI module.
we learned already from openmoko that this is an extremely risky
strategy.  people who remember it, the openmoko took so long that the
WIFI module went end-of-life *DURING* the development... that
effectively killed the project because they could not afford yet
another round of design and PCB testing.

 now, please let's be absolutely clear: the above paragraph is
***NOT*** a criticism of the neo900 team's efforts.  it's just that i
see the various failures and successes of the past 10+ years, and go
"hmmm if we did X and avoided Y by doing Z instead, then we end up
with a higher chance of success".

 ... sooo... there is *NO WIFI* on-board any of the PCBs: it's done as
USB-WIFI.  there is *NO 3G* on board any of the PCBs: i expect people
to get their own USB-3G modem.  or 2G.  or 4G.  or LTE.  or 5G.

problem goes away.


> In my case, I would be interested in a possible range of products, but
> none of the current meet the expectations in one way or another:

 well you can always pledge for a computer card, then sell it on ebay
or contact someone on the mailing list, i'm sure someone will take it
off your hands

> - The only one laptop that I owned with <1000p of vertical resolution I
>  hated with passion (partly because of the resolution and partly
>  because of the glossy screen).

 the EOMA68-A20 has an HDMI port, 1920x1080 works perfectly, and you
can always get a DisplayLink USB-DVI/HDMI adapter

>  So I think that buying a laptop from the campaign with that screen
>  resolution would be a mistake in my case.  Personally I also need
>  something much more powerful than the A20 for tasks that I do daily on
>  the computer (both in terms of CPU and memory).


> - Close family are still well served by the options already available
>  around the home, e.g. Thinkpads a decade old (still from IBM).

 yeahyeah - then this would be not such a bad option for them

> - I will need one or two mini-servers at home in 1~2 months.  I have
>  several small devices around the house with different architectures,
>  some not even purchased but given to me for some reason or another,
>  and that I have not tried yet after 1 year sitting in a bookcase; as
>  well as older x86 systems that still fit the bill and work fine.

 :)

>  So I could give some use to EOMA cards if I pledge for them (still
>  deciding), but in that case I would keep the other hardware unused
>  (not eco-friendly, and a bit of a waste of money).  And I would need
>  them now-ish, waiting until next spring is not an option for that
>  small personal project.
>
>
> I think that many people wanting to support the project would have
> similar conflicts and are not decided about what to do.

 yeahh it's all about timing.

> It's a pity that RFY certification can only start after the campaign is
> finished.  With lots of visibility, at least it would mean that there's
> a bigger set of people in the intersection "I want to support this
> project", "I need this hardware/products in a few months" and "I can pay
> them now".
>
>
> Meanwhile, pledges keep increasing :-)

 i know... :)  i keep doing updates, it keeps people interested.

l.