Happy New Year everybody! Well, reading all those comments here about non-profit and break-even calculations my theory is the following:
Big TI saw the great success of the Raspberry Pi and its engaged community so they decided to copy it. They created the "non-profit" Beagleboard.org and let CircuitCo manufacture the boards - yes, have a look who is actually behind Beagleboard.org! IMHO the idea behind it was to make the whole project independent of TI (no liability for anything) and let the community do all the development work for free. So they hired only one (?) HW developer + only one SW developer (who additionally did all the support for the community and now has left the company). On the other hand it is very interesting for me to know how much this "non-profit" scheme spends for advertising and marketing, I bet it is a very different number in contrast to the money spent for actual Beaglebone HW + SW development. Talking about all this "non-profit" stuff people overlook the fact that the Beaglebone is actually a very effective large marketing machine working for TI and its Linux processors. Just look at all the articles about the Beaglebones, all the Google Adwords and other advertising in magazines you see around, people wrinting in forums, spending time to make YouTube videos just push TI popularity + sales for free and they do it better than any internal marketing department. Also, I still don't get it why TI should make less money when 100.000 BBBs are sold than they do when selling large quantities of a Linux MCU to a big company... Unfortunately, as we know, the marketing concept did not work as well as expected: The only SW developer at Beagleboard.org decided to choose the niche Angstrom Linux for some reason. For Angstrom there was no community, no existing docs or books, no forums you could find any questions answered. So developers not only had to know Linux at bare-metal level but they also had to learn complex OpenEmbedded and spend too much time to get simple things done in the Angstrom way, if they did not give up immediately. So nobody really contributed anything to Angstrom Beaglebone development. Another problem was the fact, that TI did not even succeed to deliver a proper kernel with working drivers to the community at that time. They also sticked to their parallel Arago (EZSDK) project instead of working together with the community and Angstrom (Angstrom is a real celebrity in contrast to Arago). Additionally, at this time Linus Torvalds decided to force developers to move to device tree. This was another very huge problem that still has not been solved completely. Reagardless of the problems above, people continued to buy the BBB because it is cheap and advertisements suggested it was "easy" to use. Development boards are a nice business for any manufacturer because everything is expected to be done by the developer (who is always the one who causes the problem) and there are no warranties at all. So it looks now that TI / Beagleboard / CircuitCo try to correct the Angstrom concept by moving to Debian, probably again without investing in development. If the community will suddenly become as engaded as with the Raspberry Pi is a different question. But at least they would not have to rely on one single Angstrom developer to solve all their problems. Anguel On Tuesday, December 31, 2013 3:21:17 AM UTC+1, David Anders wrote: > > just in case some of the folks here would like to educate themselves on > what beagleboard.org is: > > http://www.beagleboard.org/about > > > > > On Monday, December 30, 2013 8:11:57 PM UTC-6, liyaoshi wrote: >> >> A part of this group interest me is about the rants >> >> Nest Time ,if I have chance to be abroad , I will use the skill learned >> from here >> >> :) >> >> >> 2013/12/31 Gerald Coley <[email protected]> >> >>> I designed the BBB. Other people design the capes. No capes come from >>> BeagleBoard.org. So feel free to rant, but facts do have a place in rants. >>> >>> >>> Gerald >>> >>> >>> >>> On Mon, Dec 30, 2013 at 7:56 PM, Terry Storm <[email protected]>wrote: >>> >>>> Hi William >>>> >>>> As I said, I have no problem with the BBB hardware. >>>> I am 100% referring to the software. If the software sucks then to the >>>> average Joe Bloggs the hardware then also, well, sucks. >>>> If Joe Bloggs buys a BBB and a cape made by the same company, and there >>>> is a recommended software to go with it which claims compatibility, then >>>> Joe Bloggs would rightly expect that the BBB + CAPE + OS will run as >>>> advertised, and this isnt the case. >>>> >>>> I personally am using but a fraction of what the BBB is capable of >>>> doing, however I wouldn't have thought using a BBB made by CircuitCo and a >>>> LCD Cape made by CircuitCo, running the recommended OS with everything as >>>> default, and finding that the touch does not work and things like the >>>> mouse >>>> pointer jumps all over the screen, kinda not fit for purpose? >>>> >>>> If someone like me buys a BBB + Cape and uses an OS which is >>>> recommended and claims compatibility, and finds that it doesn't work for >>>> something as fundamental as the touch screen, is that classed as user >>>> error? >>>> >>>> I personally think not. >>>> >>>> I stand by my comment of it being a flop, as if the company does not >>>> make a profit after selling 100K of a popular product, then really... what >>>> was the point. >>>> And in terms of sales and people not being able to get stock, you have >>>> to start to wonder how many of those are from users reading the marketting >>>> and thinking that will be great, to find when they get it they have no >>>> idea >>>> how to fix problems they encounter (like me) and so cannot use it as they >>>> wanted to. >>>> >>>> Many of the happy people probably dont use Capes as you said. It just >>>> sucks that the people who designed the cape also design the BBB, and they >>>> dont work right purely due to the Software. BBB + LCD Cape on Android >>>> works >>>> fine, so the hardware is perfectly fine, but Android is of no use to many >>>> so it doesnt help much. >>>> >>>> Terry >>>> >>>> >>>> On Tuesday, 31 December 2013 14:07:17 UTC+13, William Hermans wrote: >>>>> >>>>> Terry, >>>>> >>>>> I do realize you're mostly aiming your comments at Gerald but let me >>>>> just say that I think you missed a few key points. >>>>> >>>>> 1) This is not a Dell or common general purpose PC. So you can not >>>>> expect the same from such hardware. With that said, there is nothing >>>>> wrong >>>>> with the hardware. It all works fine, and actually up until recently the >>>>> only thing that did not work was the SGX/DRM video drivers. Now, that has >>>>> been resolved, but still in alpha / beta stage ( ish ). Different people >>>>> seem to have experienced different problems here and there, but think >>>>> this >>>>> is very likely mostly user error. >>>>> >>>>> 2) Do you understand the idea of open source hardware ? *.org is >>>>> usually and possibly always non profit domain name affiliation. What >>>>> Gerald >>>>> and his partners have planned I have no idea, but in my own mind the >>>>> Beaglebone black is far from a flop. Quite the opposite actually when >>>>> electronics retailers can hardly seem to keep them in stock, because they >>>>> sell so fast. >>>>> >>>>> 3) If you can pick up a book, or read web pages you can do this >>>>> yourself. Many in this group will help, even me, when you have a >>>>> reasonable >>>>> question to ask. >>>>> >>>>> Anyways it really suck that this does not seem to be working for you. >>>>> Just now that many of of are perfectly happy with these little boards. >>>>> Heck >>>>> there are a few people who own ten's and possibly even hundred's of these >>>>> very boards . . . >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> -- >>>> For more options, visit http://beagleboard.org/discuss >>>> --- >>>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google >>>> Groups "BeagleBoard" group. >>>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send >>>> an email to [email protected]. >>>> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. >>>> >>> >>> -- >>> For more options, visit http://beagleboard.org/discuss >>> --- >>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google >>> Groups "BeagleBoard" group. >>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send >>> an email to [email protected]. >>> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. >>> >> >> -- For more options, visit http://beagleboard.org/discuss --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "BeagleBoard" group. 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