3 ms·

Firstly, only kudos to them for having designed the Zero in the first place, and I'm sure they intended it to be available in volume this many months after rele

by j1vms 11y ago

Firstly, only kudos to them for having designed the Zero in the first place, and I'm sure they intended it to be available in volume this many months after release. However, until they can reach volume on a major released project (e.g. the Zero), they should be careful about getting too much press visibility on said product. As of 2016, Raspberry Pi is world-wide name with international name recognition, and it can only hurt the organization when its products marketed at a $5 USD price point are, in practice, only really available at $40+ USD, to the majority of its potential customers, and this many months after release.

MarcScott 11y ago
On the plus side - all the donations the Raspberry Pi Foundation received from sales of the Zero helped fund a teacher training course that is being rolled out across the United States.
- j1vms 11y ago
  That is a indeed a plus. Indeed in the gparent comment I only wished to point out 1 way in which the organization could improve should they wish. Getting open source design part-sourced, assembled and then shipped in volume levels is still a business process in nascency. I'm sure they face abundant challenges on the supplier-side. Regardless, I do hope that against all odds, volume manufactured open source hardware becomes a force to be reckoned with in the decades to come - perhaps analogously to how FOSS Linux dominated in its own and ever-expanding arena.
makomk 11y ago
The Raspberry Pi Foundation don't care, never have, and it's never really come back to bite them because the tech press likes the story they're selling. The $5 British computer makes for a great narrative, and it's a great PR technique too; for instance, every comment thread on BBC's micro:bit is full of people arguing that the only reason they didn't use the $5 Pi Zero is because of NIH syndrome. They've understood that PR is worth screwing users over since day minus-one. Even before the Pi launched, they were encouraging their supporters to promote it to non-technical users as a media box and dismissing suggestions that this might leave a bad impression because they couldn't get it working. Cut to after the launch, and the narrative is that the Pi is getting unfair criticism from non-technical users who mistakenly thought it was a media box when obviously it isn't.

by j1vms 11y ago

MarcScott 11y ago

On the plus side - all the donations the Raspberry Pi Foundation received from sales of the Zero helped fund a teacher training course that is being rolled out across the United States.

j1vms 11y ago
That is a indeed a plus. Indeed in the gparent comment I only wished to point out 1 way in which the organization could improve should they wish. Getting open source design part-sourced, assembled and then shipped in volume levels is still a business process in nascency. I'm sure they face abundant challenges on the supplier-side. Regardless, I do hope that against all odds, volume manufactured open source hardware becomes a force to be reckoned with in the decades to come - perhaps analogously to how FOSS Linux dominated in its own and ever-expanding arena.

makomk 11y ago

The Raspberry Pi Foundation don't care, never have, and it's never really come back to bite them because the tech press likes the story they're selling. The $5 British computer makes for a great narrative, and it's a great PR technique too; for instance, every comment thread on BBC's micro:bit is full of people arguing that the only reason they didn't use the $5 Pi Zero is because of NIH syndrome. They've understood that PR is worth screwing users over since day minus-one. Even before the Pi launched, they were encouraging their supporters to promote it to non-technical users as a media box and dismissing suggestions that this might leave a bad impression because they couldn't get it working. Cut to after the launch, and the narrative is that the Pi is getting unfair criticism from non-technical users who mistakenly thought it was a media box when obviously it isn't.