That Open, Upgradeable ARM Dev Board Is Trying To Make A Comeback

[pal666]

am i painting a big enough picture

no matter how easier it is to make, laptop without graphics won't fly. better build laptop around rpi 3

[pal666]

The average user does not need 3D acceleration provided the desktop environment and applications

are from last millenium

[pal666]

Don't be an idiot, they already told you why they cannot above.

don't be an idiot, i already told you excuses will not make it useful

And I already called them loonies as if the FSF does not care, they shouldn't either.

fsf is not going to buy this product, customers are. customers will vote with wallet

[starshipeleven]

don't be an idiot, i already told you excuses will not make it useful

don't be an idiot again, these are not excuses, it's sad reality.

fsf is not going to buy this product, customers are. customers will vote with wallet

Customers will not buy this because it is a turd, not because Allwinner is a GPL violator in some drivers used in some crap chinese tablet somehwere.

[pal666]

It has an SoC that is 2 1/2 times faster than the Raspberry Pi.

2 core a7 is 2.5 times faster than 4 core a53? in what benchmark ?

It's also not as broken, buggy, or problematic as what came out of Bradcom with the Raspberry Pi project.

allwinner is broken, buggy and problematic. rpi has vendor-employed developer working fulltime on upstreaming

[pal666]

don't be an idiot again, these are not excuses, it's sad reality.

don't be an idiot, these are excuses

Customers will not buy this because it is a turd, not because Allwinner is a GPL violator in some drivers used in some crap chinese tablet somehwere.

in this thread we have one customer who will not buy this because it is a turd and several customers who will not buy it because allwinner is gpl violator

[lkcl]

guuys? ahhh, i thought you might like to be made aware that i'm currently tracking about ten different simultaneous discussions. they're interesting, they're busy, and they're exciting... except for this one, where there are people - bear in mind that these discussions are *permanent*, archived forever and cannot be removed - giving out a really bad vibe. this is the only forum where that's happening. you might want to reflect on that before continuing to use such phrases and passing such judgements. it doesn't do you any favours, and it gives the whole community a bad name, as well as affects the reputation of the phoronix forum itself.

[lkcl]

no matter how easier it is to make, laptop without graphics won't fly.

( i assume you mean 3D graphics? we're not targetting high-end games or power users remember). if the target market for this initial experimental production is people in offices or people who want to do email, browse the web, do some documents and so on, who also want to be much more environmentally responsible and ethical about their computers, this is a perfect device for them.

remember also this is crowd-funding. this production run is just a stepping-stone - a way to bootstrap up. we have to start somewhere, and i have designed the whole project around being able to reasonably, responsibly and ethically scale up.

bottom line is, you're *not* "buying a product", you're helping us to reach much larger goals. crowd-funding is not used for "sales of products". you can't "invest". you can't place "orders". the language is completely different: it's based around appreciation, gifts and rewards.

better build laptop around rpi 3

ok, let's evaluate this seriously and openly, in the context of the goal that i'm working towards. the goal is:

"To ethically and responsibly bring eco-conscious mass-volume desirable products to market that save people money long-term".

so from that we can work out some design requirements:

* must be based around some sort of robust long-term standard that keeps products out of landfill
* must be easy to upgrade (take a few seconds)
* must be easy to repair (documentation available)
* must be attractive and desirable
* must have reasonably robust components that are easily sourced

but also the ethical aspect has some implications as well:

* component suppliers must not be cartelling, or engaging in other illegal or hypocritical practices
* components must be available without NDAs or huge financial disincentives (MOQ 1 million for example)

... can you see where this is going? even before we get to considering the implementation, i don't believe that the rpi 3 (or a product based around it) fulfils even a *SINGLE* one of these requirements. would you agree with that assessment? if you don't, i can take you through them one by one?

in other words, what i'm saying is that if you set certain parameters - to be ethical and environmentally responsible about the way that you do business for example - it has certain implications which totally rule out and overrule *any* kind of "technically superior" components because the company making them is... just... yeah, you got it i'm sure.

and y'know what? i'm happy to make that choice.

[lkcl]

I agree about nobody caring anymore -- We're not free from fascist corporatism so who cares

.

i do. i choose to take a stand. i reject it. i do not submit. they do not own me. i reject their authority. i am responsible for my own decisions. "i'm spartacus"! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8h_v_our_Q

oh - found another one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlRVxzHUSNc

I just tossed a Banana Pi M2 in the GARBAGE because it's a waste of my time so no way I'm paying $500 for Allwinner's obsolete technology.

whoa hang on - the laptop dock has nothing to do with the processor used in the first computer card in the series. you're aware that i have for example a "Pass Through" Card in the design box? plugged into the Laptop housing it turns the Laptop housing basically into a 2nd screen, 2nd keyboard and 2nd mouse for your smartphone, laptop, desktop PC or anything else that you plug into with an HDMI and USB port.

also bear in mind, that $500 is going towards supporting the *campaign*. you're *not* paying for a *product*, you're helping support the ideas that i've put up on the page, helping me to see through the vision that i've been working on for five years.

you're receiving a *reward* in return...

crowd funding is based around "gift economy", it's not a contract of sale, product orders or investment. it's totally different.

so if you support the *ideas* that i am seeking to fulfil, consider backing those... and incidentally i'll reward you by sending you something in the post that's a bit better than a banana pi

IMHO, though, these guys should be making a SoC tablet not a laptop. That's the niche market for small (and cheap) system boards.

the standard allows us to upgrade - double the ram, double the processor speed, double the memory. the processor being used *now* is highly efficient, but i've outlined also (in several forums) that it's what i can get hold of easily *now*... and it also fulfils various other ethical tickboxes that i've decided are inviolate.

i've got a tablet design standing by - my sponsor decided that it would be better to start with a laptop than with a tablet. once we've got this crowdfunding campaign done and in production, i'll revisit the tablet design when i'm in taiwan, as i will be able to go directly to the factories and find an appropriate and reasonably-priced LCD and matching CTP. that's *really* hard to do from Europe, i can tell you!

so if you'd like to see a tablet made on a follow-up crowd funding campaign (where you'll be able to upgrade *that* and also save money because you already bought a Computer Card), help out by supporting this one.

at the same time i'll likely have found an appropriate quad-core processor, because i will have gone into Allwinner's offices with a big baseball bat and bludgeoned the engineers over the head with it until they give me the GPL source code. if they don't (or they throw me out of the offices) I'll use the RK3188 because Tom Cubie kindly released the Radxa Rock PCB CAD files so i can easily rework that into an EOMA68 form-factor (i'm 20% the way done with that already).

this ain't a small project man! this modular robust approach is basically totally unique - there's literally nothing like it on the market today. at all. and you're damn lucky i'm a software libre engineer - imagine how this would go down if it was done by an irresponsible profit-maximising corporation that was completely ignorant of and didn't care about keeping the free software community happy and actively involved in the hardware development process??

[lkcl]

Thanks for running the project!

thanks michael.

Trying to make real progress with fully Libre computers has got to be like six knights picking up their lances to do battle with a continent of Smaug-class dragons.

windmills! CHAAARGE! http://www.drjeffcornwall.com/2011/0...xote_syndrome/

In terms of GPL violations, I would guess that the Free Software Foundation is totally practical - Microsoft, Apple, Oracle, and Sony could collaborate on a device, and release it with top to bottom free software, and the FSF would still certify it without blinking an eye. The statements "This Device Respects Your Freedom" or "This Device Does Not Respect Your Freedom" take into account only the actual device and the software running on it, nothing about the history of the companies involved in its creation.

mmmm... yeah, i'd agree with that assessment. i'd fall off my chair in deep shock and go into a gibbering floor-rocking fit if it happened, but yeah the FSF would certify it for sure.