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They're doing this now because they need to do this before the cheap, Chinese RISC-V stuff hits the market and wipes them out.
by bsder 5y ago
They're doing this now because they need to do this before the cheap, Chinese RISC-V stuff hits the market and wipes them out.
- leoedin 5y agoI don't see that happening. The benefit of the Raspberry Pi is, and has always been, the software and community support. There's loads of pi clones and cheap SBCs out there - Orange Pi, Banana Pi, Olimex etc. But none of them have got the traction - and most crucially, the community support - of the RPi. Maybe if a Chinese company with the same level of community involvement and support (Pine?) launched, they would have a real competitor. But right now it seems like there's endless clone SBCs, none of which have any real traction.
- yardie 5y agoThe cheap Chinese stuff has always been there: Banana Pi, Orange Pi, etc. It's an open-source SBC and even with all the other cheaper/higher capacity/faster alternatives available I chose the Raspberry Pi because I believe in the mission.
- zozbot234 5y agoMost of these 'cheap' SBCs are not supported by the mainline kernel or even by bootloaders such as u-boot. Which means you're stuck with a hacked-together Linux image, and no way to update or replace it. By contrast, the latest Raspbian release has replaced many formerly proprietary components with open ones. This involves some temporary breakage for existing users, but also improves support throughout the ecosystem.