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There are at least four Raspberry Pis in the house here... I've been a fan since the first generation. I hope they don't lose sight of their core values, though, with the recent IPO. I recall also hearing about some PR/community blunders recently, but such things can always occur as the business grows.
Sep 09 ¡ 3 months ago ¡ đ jsreed5, shtirlic, Sw4mp_Sl0th
đ stack ¡ Sep 09 at 12:50:
Originally I was ver y excited about the Pi's, even though they were very slow. I thought that perhaps this would be the first stable, affordable mass-market platform since the days of Apple ][ and C64... You can hack a stable platform and know your code will work, instead of coding for the least common denominator for compatibility.
But no, they came out with a ton of variants, and now you can pick up a used PC cheaper (My goto machine is a Thinkpad 470 I got for $75)...
đšī¸ skyjake [OP...] ¡ Sep 09 at 16:27:
I have to admit my excitement levels have been going down, too. I really like the 400 as an all-in-one computer, but the first time I saw the model 5 with its active cooler, it looked more like your regular PC than what I thought Raspi is all about: a low-power, passively cooled little computer. The model 5 uses a 27W power supply (!).
đ jsreed5 ¡ Sep 10 at 01:21:
I also have four Pis, one of which used to host my capsule. In my opinion, the Raspberry Pi Foundation has lost sight of its original goal: affordable and simple low-power computing. Granted, I don't blame them for no longer being affordable, but they're steadily moving away from low-power, and they're definitely not as simple as they used to be. I do praise their efforts to keep Raspi OS usable on even their earliest devices though!
đĻ CarloMonte ¡ Sep 10 at 14:09:
The Zero2W appears to be still true to the original goals of the Foundation.
đ stack ¡ Sep 10 at 17:47:
My biggest issue is the insecure bootup via undocumented blob/GPU. Ultimately it is not possible to fully trust such a device with anything truly important.
âī¸ Aptor-theHobbit [mod] ¡ Sep 10 at 17:51:
Is it possible to trust any modern hardware ? Almost all of them have a blob firmware and microcodes. One execption may be the librebooted devices. I agree with @stack that open documentation on GPU at least on RPI would have been very nice for new models. If I recall correctly, they did release GPU docs for 3b and 3b+ and because of that openCL finally worked on RPI. If I am wrong any of these, please correrct me.
đ Sw4mp_Sl0th ¡ Sep 10 at 21:23:
I share your sentiment skyjake. I've been using a Pi as a router (with OpenWRT) for a while now and the Pi shortage a few years ago led me to look for backup replacement alternatives. The Libre Computer (https://libre.computer/) SBCs ($35 USD Tritium ALL-H3-CC and $45 USD Renegade ROC-RK3328-CC) met that particular need nicely. The other Pi (a small server) I was hosting a few local services on for the family got replaced by an Intel Atom mini PC (Z83-F). Now that I've tried these devices I don't think I'll be going back to Pis anytime soon.
âī¸ shtirlic ¡ Sep 13 at 05:45:
While you are talking about big MCUs, I really found interesting small RP2040 and RP2350 in Pico 1/2 boards, especially the PIO approach for custom interfaces
đ mk270 ¡ Sep 13 at 19:27:
The goal of the Raspberry Pi Foundation has never changed, and remains "to further the advancement of education of adults and children, particularly in the field of Computers, Computer Science and related subjects". This has always been a matter of public record.
Under UK charity and company law, the goal can only be changed with the consent of the Charity Commission.
It has never been about "affordable and simple low-power computing" and it would be illegal for the Foundation to prioritise this above being an educational charity.
đšī¸ skyjake [OP...] ¡ Sep 14 at 12:02:
@mk270 That is correct, the Foundation is and remains a charity focused on education. My original comment was about the for-profit subsidiary responsible for designing the Raspberry Pi computers. That is the entity that was listed on the stock market recently. This can be very useful for raising funds, however in the longer term, the stock market can act as a negative incentive (see also: enshittification).
đ mk270 ¡ Sep 14 at 14:01:
@skyjake Sorry, I do beg your pardon. I should have been clearer: I was intending only to respond to @jsreed5's point, which I quoted directly without it being explicit whom I was replying to.
đ jsreed5 ¡ Sep 16 at 10:49:
"Goal" might have been the incorrect word on my part. You are correct that the stated goal of the Raspberry Pi Foundation has never changed. I meant to convey that ever since the early days, the foundation intended to implement their goals by creating simple, affordable, low-power computers--and that in my opinion, their current implementation doesn't quite resemble their original ideas. Their ideas on implementation are apparent in their early "About Us" page: https://web.archive.org/web/20120323154038/http://www.raspberrypi.org/about
đ mk270 ¡ Sep 24 at 18:12:
Again, I don't really agree that "low-power" or "simple" came into it. It was only about "affordable", specifically, limiting the cost to $35, so that if the child somehow broke the device, it wasn't wrecking the parent's work machine, but wrecking something that many families could afford to replace.
I'd look at the business plan documents / prospectus circulated around the time of the IPO for where the trading company is going next - very informative.