[Arm-netbook] Slowly but surely...

[Gordan Bobic]

On 07/09/2012 04:50 PM, lkcl luke wrote:

>> How long did that take so far?
>
>   to find a team that is prepared to do the work *without* any money
> exchanging hands either way?  that takes a long time.  to actually do
> the work (by using the EVB schematics given to us)? about 5-7 working
> days.
>
>   if however you or anyone else could have come up with about $USD
> 10,000 then we could have found one of those teams that was capable of
> completing the work within about 5-7 working days, given them the
> money about one year ago and the boards would have been completed
> about one year ago.

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 we're deploying a different kind of investment strategy from
> that.  it's about doing deals, where everyone in the chain benefits in
> the long-term from their contributions to the project.

But they don't. If it ultimately makes your product so late to the 
market that it is deprecated anobody wants it, then all that effort 
amounts to just being a waste of everyone's time.

When you want to upgrade to a newer SoC you will have to get all the PCB 
work done again. And if you again want it done for free you'll repeat 
the whole cycle again.

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, then that means you are essentially trying to get a 
freebie bootstrap to your own capitalist business which while ingenious, 
seems somewhat dishonest toward other parties involved, especially the 
volunteers who are contributing for free the kernel code that your 
product would be worthless without.

Either way, it doesn't sound like the way forward toward the long term 
abundance of good will.

>   if you've read "millionaire mind" you will recognise this strategy.
> any company or individual that wants cash up-front payments rather
> than being prepared to work on a deal-basis or a percentage-basis we
> have eliminated *instantly* from further discussions.

So when are the free software developers getting a percentage of this 
business for their contribution?

>   by following this approach it means we have not needed any investors,
> nor any investment, of any kind.

"We" being?

>   * coming up to a deadline back in april or so, bari refused to work
> to a deadline.  this made several people extremely angry, as everyone
> - you, me, everyone on this list, the factory _and_ our clients - had
> been relying on him to complete the PCB layout.  so: goodbye
> engineering team no 2.

Expecting somebody to work to a deadline in their own time for free to 
help bootstrap somebody else's commercial business is a bit rich, don't 
you think?

>   * this third PCB engineering company agreed to a deal: again, no
> money exchanged either way.  they love the project, have seen the
> number of preorders and are really looking forward to supplying
> everyone with CPU Cards.
>
>   so that's where we are.  we've had to alter accordingly.

So how much has doing this for free cost you in lost revenue since the 
beginning of the project?

Can you really afford something that cheap?

Is it worth the bad will it creates among people who were genuinely 
interested in the product, if only it were available a year ago?

> also there is the possibility of a 2nd CPU Card, using the iMX53.  a
> provisional cost has been worked out.  if the client goes for it, then
> that CPU Card will be available as well.  the reason why the client
> picked the iMX53 as opposed to the A10 is because freescale have a
> guaranteed timeline and lifecycle for the iMX53, as well as having
> Industrial Temperature Grade processors (at reduced clock speed).

Sounds another case of getting what you pay for, and somebody realizing 
that they couldn't afford cheap.

>> These new blade servers have the same advantage in the server context as
>> the CPU cards are pluggable.
>
>   that's fantastic.  i wish them every success in their chosen niche
> market, riding off the back of supply of product to the U.S. Military.

And somebody is supposed to care that the SoC might have been designed 
for some military somewhere? I'm not sure if that is more naive, 
misguided or just under-thought-out. An awful lot of technology starts 
with various militaries and eventually ends up in civilian use helping 
to improve and often save the lives of many people.

>> The main difference is that if you ask very nicely and get in with the
>> right crowd, you can plausibly get your hands on one of those server
>> chassies - unlike with EOMA.
>
>   these calxeda-based servers are not going to be sold in quantities of
> a million per week, gordan.

Maybe not, but right now a lot of people are happy to settle for them 
being sold at all. This is the point I have been making for a while. And 
a lot of those people who get one of those instead of something like an 
EOMA blade may well be out of the market for the next 5+ years as a 
consequence. Lateness to market costs you customers that you might not 
actually get back.

>>>    so even if the EOMA-68 A10 CPU card is late as hell, it *doesn't
>>> matter*.  why? because it will be a critical prototype component
>>> against which all the *other* pieces of the strategy can be made
>>> concrete.
>>
>> Except if you chance something as critical as the SoC, you'll have to
>> redesign the PCB anyway to make all the lines go to the right place.
>
>   i don't understand what you mean here.  perhaps it's because you've
> written "chance" not "change".  but even correcting that word, you've
> misunderstood.

Indeed, it was a fat finger error. s/chance/change/

>   I/O Boards do not need to change.  casework (which is over 10x more
> expensive than PCBs) does not need to change.  by merely taking a new
> SoC's EVB schematics direct from the SoC manufacturer, it's possible
> to cut/paste that into a new EOMA-68 CPU Card within a matter of weeks
> [if you use a competent team].

If it has taken this long to not ever get as far as the first EOMA PCB, 
it does not bode well for the future.

Gordan