Hallo,
I followed the development of the EOMA68 Laptop for a long time and waited eagerly for the crowfunding-campaign. After the start of the campaign I regularly postet news on diaspora* and gnusocial and on the fsfe-de e-mail list and will do so until the end of the campaign. I hope it helps. I wonder, why so few people of the free software movement support your campaign. I thouhgt, free hardware in combination with free software was one of the top whishes of the free software community.
Cheers
Wolfgang
--- crowd-funded eco-conscious hardware: https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68
On Sun, Jul 24, 2016 at 2:44 PM, Wolfgang Romey (hier) hier@wolfgangromey.de wrote:
Hallo,
I followed the development of the EOMA68 Laptop for a long time and waited eagerly for the crowfunding-campaign. After the start of the campaign I regularly postet news on diaspora* and gnusocial and on the fsfe-de e-mail list and will do so until the end of the campaign.
thanks wolfgang, please do keep it up.
I hope it helps. I wonder, why so few people of the free software movement support your campaign. I thouhgt, free hardware in combination with free software was one of the top whishes of the free software community.
the fsf is run by volunteers who are paid hourly: they're really *really* pressed and very understaffed, and many of them have other jobs so cannot work on fsf tasks outside of their (actual) paid hours. i'm leaving it with them to get the press release and so on out when they have available time.
l.
Hallo Luke,
Am Sonntag, 24. Juli 2016, 15:15:46 schrieb Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton:
thanks wolfgang, please do keep it up.
I'll do it. Of course I pledged myself.
the fsf is run by volunteers who are paid hourly: they're really *really* pressed and very understaffed, and many of them have other jobs so cannot work on fsf tasks outside of their (actual) paid hours. i'm leaving it with them to get the press release and so on out when they have available time.
l.
Of course. But in Germany and other Europe-Contries and I think in the countries where there are sister-organisations of the fsf-usa, there are the fellows of the fsf(e), which support Free software. They are not staff and, like me, decide themself, in what way they do it. They do it beside their regular jobs. I think these are the people, who should support the project.
BTW can you understand german? Here is one example of what I posted:
https://pod.geraspora.de/posts/5058320
Cheers
Wolfgang
--- crowd-funded eco-conscious hardware: https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68
On Sun, Jul 24, 2016 at 3:35 PM, Wolfgang Romey hier@wolfgangromey.de wrote:
Hallo Luke,
Am Sonntag, 24. Juli 2016, 15:15:46 schrieb Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton:
thanks wolfgang, please do keep it up.
I'll do it. Of course I pledged myself.
awesome, really appreciated
the fsf is run by volunteers who are paid hourly: they're really *really* pressed and very understaffed, and many of them have other jobs so cannot work on fsf tasks outside of their (actual) paid hours. i'm leaving it with them to get the press release and so on out when they have available time.
l.
Of course. But in Germany and other Europe-Contries and I think in the countries where there are sister-organisations of the fsf-usa, there are the fellows of the fsf(e), which support Free software. They are not staff and, like me, decide themself, in what way they do it. They do it beside their regular jobs. I think these are the people, who should support the project.
if you know how to reach them and let them know, please do i know that paul kindly posted but then had to go to hospital.
BTW can you understand german? Here is one example of what I posted:
thanks woldgang.
l.
Am Sonntag, 24. Juli 2016, 15:38:13 schrieb Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton:
if you know how to reach them and let them know, please do i know that paul kindly posted but then had to go to hospital.
I can reach the German-speaking fellows of the fsfe, which are in austria, germany and part of swizzerland, through the fsfe-de -mailinglist, which I use to promote your project.
Wolfgang
--- crowd-funded eco-conscious hardware: https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68
On Sun, Jul 24, 2016 at 3:51 PM, Wolfgang Romey hier@wolfgangromey.de wrote:
Am Sonntag, 24. Juli 2016, 15:38:13 schrieb Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton:
if you know how to reach them and let them know, please do i know that paul kindly posted but then had to go to hospital.
I can reach the German-speaking fellows of the fsfe, which are in austria, germany and part of swizzerland, through the fsfe-de -mailinglist, which I use to promote your project.
awesome, if you let them know also there are articles on heise.de and pro-linux.de as well that would be nice for them
http://www.pro-linux.de/news/1/23777/universelle-rechnerkarte-eoma68-sucht-u... http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/EOMA68-will-Basis-fuer-wiederverwendb...
l.
Am Sonntag, 24. Juli 2016, 16:03:59 schrieb Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton:
awesome, if you let them know also there are articles on heise.de and pro-linux.de as well that would be nice for them
I just published about the articles on diaspora* , gnusocial (are you present there?) and the fsfe-de-list.
Wolfgang
--- crowd-funded eco-conscious hardware: https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68
On Sun, Jul 24, 2016 at 5:26 PM, Wolfgang Romey hier@wolfgangromey.de wrote:
Am Sonntag, 24. Juli 2016, 16:03:59 schrieb Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton:
awesome, if you let them know also there are articles on heise.de and pro-linux.de as well that would be nice for them
I just published about the articles on diaspora* , gnusocial (are you present there?) and the fsfe-de-list.
thanks wolfgang. i'm not - could you send me a link when it hits the archives so i can put a link up?
On Sun Jul 24 15:51:57 BST 2016, Wolfgang Romey wrote:
Am Sonntag, 24. Juli 2016, 15:38:13 schrieb Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton:
if you know how to reach them and let them know, please do i know that paul kindly posted but then had to go to hospital.
I can reach the German-speaking fellows of the fsfe, which are in austria, germany and part of swizzerland, through the fsfe-de -mailinglist, which I use to promote your project.
Paul mentioned the campaign on the FSFE Discussion mailing list at the start of the month[1], but I think it would be really helpful to mention it on the fsfe-de list simply because it reaches the German-speaking community, not all of whom may be following the English lists. Unfortunately, the Nordic list appears to be dormant.
If the FSFE blogs had been working then Paul would have written an article there as well. As the result, the July FSFE newsletter[2] got out without the news about the campaign. I can try to correct this for August, or perhaps you can have a word with someone at the FSFE, Wolfgang?
I'm trying to reach out to people I vaguely know outside the small collection of groups that are working on this kind of project, though I don't know if they will have an impact. I blogged about the campaign[3], but it's really only me who is reading my blog, so I don't think I'll have that much of an impact there. ;-)
David
[1] http://mail.fsfeurope.org/pipermail/discussion/2016-July/date.html [2] http://mail.fsfeurope.org/pipermail/newsletter-en/2016/000068.html [3] http://www.boddie.org.uk/david/www- repo/Personal/Updates/2016/2016-07-21.html
--- crowd-funded eco-conscious hardware: https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68
On Sun, Jul 24, 2016 at 4:52 PM, David Boddie david@boddie.org.uk wrote:
If the FSFE blogs had been working then Paul would have written an article there as well. As the result, the July FSFE newsletter[2] got out without the news about the campaign. I can try to correct this for August,
that would be great. campaign only runs until 26th august. kinda critical!
or perhaps you can have a word with someone at the FSFE, Wolfgang?
I'm trying to reach out to people I vaguely know outside the small collection of groups that are working on this kind of project, though I don't know if they will have an impact. I blogged about the campaign[3], but it's really only me who is reading my blog, so I don't think I'll have that much of an impact there. ;-)
linked - everyting helps david
David
[1] http://mail.fsfeurope.org/pipermail/discussion/2016-July/date.html [2] http://mail.fsfeurope.org/pipermail/newsletter-en/2016/000068.html [3] http://www.boddie.org.uk/david/www- repo/Personal/Updates/2016/2016-07-21.html
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2016-07-24 15:15 Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton:
I followed the development of the EOMA68 Laptop for a long time and waited eagerly for the crowfunding-campaign. After the start of the campaign I regularly postet news on diaspora* and gnusocial and on the fsfe-de e-mail list and will do so until the end of the campaign.
thanks wolfgang, please do keep it up.
Ideas of places where I haven't seen it published, if you think that it's worth a try: Slashdot, SoylentNews, LWN.
(I posted the links to a few places as well, but don't have much time/energy left for the above).
I hope it helps. I wonder, why so few people of the free software movement support your campaign. I thouhgt, free hardware in combination with free software was one of the top whishes of the free software community.
the fsf is run by volunteers who are paid hourly: they're really *really* pressed and very understaffed, and many of them have other jobs so cannot work on fsf tasks outside of their (actual) paid hours. i'm leaving it with them to get the press release and so on out when they have available time.
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; 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.
Or perhaps I am wrong and Luke did read Wolfgang's message correctly.
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.
But hey, I am positive and I think that it's doing quite well at the moment :-)
Cheers.
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.
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?
Wolfgang
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.
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:
- 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.
- 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.
- 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 :-)
- 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.
- 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.
Network effects and all
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.
--- crowd-funded eco-conscious hardware: https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68
On Mon, Jul 25, 2016 at 7:23 AM, fuumind fuumind@openmailbox.org wrote:
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.
... pretty much. there is more to it than that: there is some urgency as well, related to the consequences of the US dollar being the world reserve currency *and* that the US treasury began hyperinflating the dollar some time around 2006 (see senator ron paul's book "end the fed"). i won't go into details but we have not got long.
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.
correct. i only recently encountered "Bob Podolski", last month, who was the *very first person* ever to define for me what "ethical acts" are. most people do not operate ethically. they believe that "unethical means justifies ethical ends" - BY DEFINITION if you use unethical means you CANNOT achieve an ethical end.
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.
pretty much, but we have to try, and i've actually found it fun to tell the story in terms that people can understand how to save money with this approach. the ethical side is almost irrelevant
mostly i focus on the fact that people can save money by being able to upgrade for $50 instead of throwing a $500 laptop into landfill. if they have children and not much money i tell them that they can solve all the arguments by buying one laptop housing for the household and one computer card per family member. if they have a tablet and a laptop i tell them they can save 40% by buying only one computer card to share between two devices, and save even more by sharing the computer card across even more housings.
save, save, save - less cost, less cost, less cost. problems go away, hassle-free computing, no trying to transfer files between devices, just transfer the whole computer. easy, easy, easy.
but there is still quite a lot to do, technically-wise, hence the reason why i want to stay at the MOQ 250 level (or just above) at this stage. we need you (the technically-minded people) to help try this out on your friends and family and close co-workers, supporting them and being prepared to walk them through the process of being comfortable with this new paradigm. if you've done "tech support" for your friends and family for 5-20 years, you'll know what i mean.
l.
Just for the record and from my very egotistical point of view:
A product that I would buy is a smallish fully libre smartphone of good quality with good performance, a ****load of storage and battery lasting a month at least. It would also need to have the option of plugging it into a usb hub to get me a workstation with kb+mouse+large display+better audio. And it would have to be dirt cheap ;)
/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:
- 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.
- 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.
- 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 :-)
- 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.
- 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.
Network effects and all
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.
Hi,
2016-07-25 10:10 fuumind:
Just for the record and from my very egotistical point of view:
A product that I would buy is a smallish fully libre smartphone of good quality with good performance, a ****load of storage and battery lasting a month at least. It would also need to have the option of plugging it into a usb hub to get me a workstation with kb+mouse+large display+better audio. And it would have to be dirt cheap ;)
Your analysis from the other e-mail is very interesting.
I was only trying to analyse why people in or close to FOSS and libre hardware communities didn't embrace this campaign more enthusiastically.
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.
There's the possibility to just donate money to the project, and I did a couple of years ago (to this project and also to the related and failed Improv).
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.
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, but many people are investing significant amounts of money to get the Neo900 rolling, which probably is the closest product in the works resembling what you describe. This is more or less the "specialist" hardware that I mentioned in my previous message.
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:
- 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). I happily saw it go when some components stopped working just after the warranty expired... I was relieved --rather than angry-- for missing the warranty for a few weeks.
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).
- 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.
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 :-)
Cheers.
On Mon, Jul 25, 2016 at 12:30 PM, Manuel A. Fernandez Montecelo manuel.montezelo@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.
Thanks, though I feel I should apologise re the USB 3, since the stuff you show there lists Logitech, and for a time, I was an outsourced Logitech support rep :(
Russell
On 25/07/2016, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton lkcl@lkcl.net wrote:
On Mon, Jul 25, 2016 at 12:30 PM, Manuel A. Fernandez Montecelo manuel.montezelo@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.
arm-netbook mailing list arm-netbook@lists.phcomp.co.uk http://lists.phcomp.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/arm-netbook Send large attachments to arm-netbook@files.phcomp.co.uk
Basically, Logitech officially then (and most likely now) don't support keyboards plugged in through hubs and at that time (a couple of years back) discovered strange USB 3 issues where there would be interference caused. (Of course, my USB 3 Mac works ok, but I don't use any Logitech devices (branded or non-branded))
Russell
On 25/07/2016, Russell Hyer russell.hyer@gmail.com wrote:
Thanks, though I feel I should apologise re the USB 3, since the stuff you show there lists Logitech, and for a time, I was an outsourced Logitech support rep :(
Russell
On 25/07/2016, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton lkcl@lkcl.net wrote:
On Mon, Jul 25, 2016 at 12:30 PM, Manuel A. Fernandez Montecelo manuel.montezelo@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.
arm-netbook mailing list arm-netbook@lists.phcomp.co.uk http://lists.phcomp.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/arm-netbook Send large attachments to arm-netbook@files.phcomp.co.uk
--- crowd-funded eco-conscious hardware: https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68
On Mon, Jul 25, 2016 at 11:36 PM, Russell Hyer russell.hyer@gmail.com wrote:
Thanks, though I feel I should apologise re the USB 3, since the stuff you show there lists Logitech, and for a time, I was an outsourced Logitech support rep :(
well it's not you (per se) - it's new, it's a big, big jump from the old tried-and-tested USB2, but also the main linux kernel developer who used to work on USB has quit and he was - and still is - the only person who really understands the code.
as a result the usb driver stack in linux is not keeping up.
i know that USB is a cooperative bus, so if one device gets it wrong (and many do) that's it, it's game over!
not your fault man :)
l.
Hi!
I agree with your conclusion 100%. I just felt a need to make the end goal clearly visible and that end goal is to change how the ordinary person thinks about consumer electronics. It is not the choices of a few thousand enthusiasts that will make a difference but the choices of a few billion average consumers. From that perspective you and I do more for the environment by pledging to this campaign than we do by not pledging because we allready have the hardware that we need. The latter is just a drop in the ocean. Then there is of course the libre, integrity and money-saving prespectives as well!
You have allready donated so in that way you have done more than I have. I needed to make absolutely clear what I am rooting for so that I can present it to the people around me in the best possible way and as Luke has allready stated, the ordinary consumer will hearken to two things: cost and convenience. Those are what we need to put major focus on in the long run. That is the nature of the beast.
In regards to this campaign the target group is the tech-minded and since the offering is so diverse you'll have to tailor the arguments to fit the person I guess. If the moral perspective is a feasible argument in any discussion then that would be the best as I see it.
As things stand though and as you say, pledges keep coming in even without the publicity that the FSF could bring, and that is a great thing! :)
ps
When it comes to mobile phones I'm rooting more for the freecalypso project. They are trying to liberate the baseband, a very unsexy work that no one else is doing. "The needs of the many outwheighs the wants of the few."
ds
mån 2016-07-25 klockan 12:30 +0100 skrev Manuel A. Fernandez Montecelo:
Hi,
2016-07-25 10:10 fuumind:
Just for the record and from my very egotistical point of view:
A product that I would buy is a smallish fully libre smartphone of good quality with good performance, a ****load of storage and battery lasting a month at least. It would also need to have the option of plugging it into a usb hub to get me a workstation with kb+mouse+large display+better audio. And it would have to be dirt cheap ;)
Your analysis from the other e-mail is very interesting.
I was only trying to analyse why people in or close to FOSS and libre hardware communities didn't embrace this campaign more enthusiastically. 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.
There's the possibility to just donate money to the project, and I did a couple of years ago (to this project and also to the related and failed Improv).
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.
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, but many people are investing significant amounts of money to get the Neo900 rolling, which probably is the closest product in the works resembling what you describe. This is more or less the "specialist" hardware that I mentioned in my previous message.
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:
- 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). I happily saw it go when some components stopped working just after the warranty expired... I was relieved --rather than angry-- for missing the warranty for a few weeks.
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).
- 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.
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 :-)
Cheers.
--- crowd-funded eco-conscious hardware: https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68
On Tue, Jul 26, 2016 at 7:08 AM, fuumind fuumind@openmailbox.org wrote:
When it comes to mobile phones I'm rooting more for the freecalypso project. They are trying to liberate the baseband, a very unsexy work that no one else is doing.
errr... haralde welte.... osmoconbb, openbts?
http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Osmocom_on_TI_Calypso http://lists.openmoko.org/pipermail/community/2012-July/067276.html
they haven't even mentioned that work on the freecalypso front page!!!
l.
You are right about this of course! It is mentioned somewhere in the other pages though if I remember correctly or at least in the list.
/fuumind
tis 2016-07-26 klockan 17:45 +0100 skrev Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton:
http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Osmocom_on_TI_Calypso http://lists.openmoko.org/pipermail/community/2012-July/067276.html
they haven't even mentioned that work on the freecalypso front page!!!
--- crowd-funded eco-conscious hardware: https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68
On Sun, Jul 24, 2016 at 5:31 PM, Wolfgang Romey hier@wolfgangromey.de wrote:
Is there a chance, to get the FSF Respects Your Freedom Certificate in the near future?
we've applied - it's conditional. we need 2 fully-working samples to give to the FSF... we don't *have* 2 working samples, i've only got 1 remaining and i need it.
so we have to get the crowdfunding done, that pays for the samples, _then_ we give 2 to the FSF, _then_ we get the RYF Certification.
l.
Hallo,
Am Sonntag, 24. Juli 2016, 20:40:23 schrieb Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton:
Is there a chance, to get the FSF Respects Your Freedom Certificate in the near future?
we've applied - it's conditional. we need 2 fully-working samples to give to the FSF... we don't *have* 2 working samples, i've only got 1 remaining and i need it.
Thank you for making that clear! Sad. That shows, how difficult it is, to develop something using mostly private resources.
Wolfgang
Hi guys, Hi gals
I still have yet to purchase a pre-ordered kit, but I'll do so before your campaign runs down.
Obviously, I understand this is early days, and your current kit so far as I understand doesn't include USB3 and potentially doesn't include enough voltage for what I would consider a cool use of the tech; though, like I say, it might not be technically possible up front. So, you may have seen displaylink monitors (of course, I'm not quite sure of the libre-ness of these monitors, but I use one on my Mac Mini and it does provide a neat way of lugging around a 17 inch monitor without the drag of anything other than a USB 3 cable). In theory these also support GNU/Linux devices as well. (But I haven't yet bought a USB 3 card for my libre IBM to test this out in reality. But, whilst I would still want to support your computer system at this stage, as regards daily, repeated usage in the earliest stages, I feel supporting that type of hardware may be required and would allow the net top version of the device to become more laptop-esque.)
Thanks in advance for answering my question, and thanks again for this great project.
Russell
On 25/07/2016, Wolfgang Romey hier@wolfgangromey.de wrote:
Hallo,
Am Sonntag, 24. Juli 2016, 20:40:23 schrieb Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton:
Is there a chance, to get the FSF Respects Your Freedom Certificate in the near future?
we've applied - it's conditional. we need 2 fully-working samples to give to the FSF... we don't *have* 2 working samples, i've only got 1 remaining and i need it.
Thank you for making that clear! Sad. That shows, how difficult it is, to develop something using mostly private resources.
Wolfgang
Wolfgang Romey Krokusstraße 37 47249 Duisburg
geraspora: https://pod.geraspora.de/people/9002a1416a4e4a9d loadaverage: https://loadaverage.org/hier tox: wolfgang_romey@toxme.se
Bitte Anhänge nur in freien Formaten. Die Nachricht ist signiert, der öffentliche Schlüssel wird auf Anfrage zugeleitet.
--- crowd-funded eco-conscious hardware: https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68
On Mon, Jul 25, 2016 at 11:10 AM, Russell Hyer russell.hyer@gmail.com wrote:
Hi guys, Hi gals
I still have yet to purchase a pre-ordered kit, but I'll do so before your campaign runs down.
awesome, thanks russell
Obviously, I understand this is early days, and your current kit so far as I understand doesn't include USB3 and potentially doesn't include enough voltage for what I would consider a cool use of the tech;
it's covered in the q/a on the questions... hang on, i had to cut the official one quite short, the longer explanation is on here http://rhombus-tech.net/crowdsupply/ search for "SATA"
though, like I say, it might not be technically possible up front. So, you may have seen displaylink monitors
yeah back in 2010 or so i helped bernie out with testing a UD-160A and one of the 7in 800x600 USB-powered monitors to get it working with ARM, there was a little-endian byte-swapped issue in the linux kernel driver, bernie fixed that.
(of course, I'm not quite sure of the libre-ness of these monitors,
fully GPLv2 compliant (at least the UD-160A and the 7in USB-powered monitor is)
but I use one on my Mac Mini and it does provide a neat way of lugging around a 17 inch monitor without the drag of anything other than a USB 3 cable).
... i did 4 screens on a mac laptop by adding one via a UD-160A... :)
In theory these also support GNU/Linux devices as well.
in *reality* i *know* that the USB2 ones work perfectly.
(But I haven't yet bought a USB 3 card for my libre IBM to test this out in reality).
i've not bought a USB3 one, i don't trust USB3 yet. heard about all the problems.... and now i am testing out TP150 802.11n WIFI dongles with the EOMA68-A20, guess what's happening? grrr.... https://lists.ath9k.org/pipermail/ath9k-devel/2016-July/014729.html
But, whilst I would still want to support your computer system at this stage, as regards daily, repeated usage in the earliest stages, I feel supporting that type of hardware may be required and would allow the net top version of the device to become more laptop-esque.)
yeahyeah - no i get it: tested already back in 2010, on a beagleboard clone: worked great.
Thanks in advance for answering my question, and thanks again for this great project.
thanks russell.
On Mon, Jul 25, 2016 at 10:10 PM, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton lkcl@lkcl.net wrote:
yeah back in 2010 or so i helped bernie out with testing a UD-160A and one of the 7in 800x600 USB-powered monitors to get it working with ARM, there was a little-endian byte-swapped issue in the linux kernel driver, bernie fixed that.
https://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/libdlo/2009-November/000428.html
been at this too long, done too many different things to remember.... 2009!
arm-netbook@lists.phcomp.co.uk
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David Boddie -
fuumind -
Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton -
Manuel A. Fernandez Montecelo -
Russell Hyer -
Wolfgang Romey -
Wolfgang Romey (hier)