21–30 of 132 posts
Maybe someone from the Raspberry Pi Foundation can explain this to me: it seems they're going corporate ; is there any place left for a Raspberry Pi non-profit? Seems a bit contradictory with recent events at HQ.
> The Raspberry Pi Foundation, formed in 2009, is a registered charity with a goal of putting “the power of computing and digital making into the hands of people all over the world.” The famous eponymous SBC was designed to be affordable and champion programming in schools, hoping to repeat the home computer boom of the 1980s. Raspberry Pi Trading Ltd is a wholly-owned subsidiary responsible for the engineering and t…
Obviously, this gets handled under UK charity law, not US — but I wonder if this would fly in the US. Charities can own for-profit entities, but pay taxes on the Unrelated Business Income. But this is closer to a for-profit hospital conversion on steroids, where the driver becomes the profit, not the the charity. There’s a very obvious conflict of interest between the charity, management, and the public investors, wh…
It is interesting to think of this under US law since non profits are regulated heavily, but its not really that absurd
The US version would require reducing shareholdings to below 35% or 20% - depending on what kind of foundation/nonprofit it actually was registered as, and what kind of decision making is being done. It wouldn't be unrelated business income tax it would be excess business holdings tax which I think can be way worse of an excise tax, up to 200%
It would be nice if they where an open source hardware company. They don't publish the full schematics of anything, which makes it impossible to do low level programming of the thing in a reasonable manner. I'm going to use up the hardware I bought in ignorance, and find better stuff for the future. https://github.com/raspberrypi/documentation/issues/347
The schematics aren't so much the issue. It's the lack of documentation for the SoC and other components.
The Raspberry Pi is a great learning platform and I think the Raspberry Pi foundation made the right choice in using the Broadcom parts, even if they are relatively closed. The vast majority of end users aren't using the platform for anything that requires access to the low-level, undocumented parts. Keeping the cost to a minimum was the right choice, IMO.
If someone needed low-level access to the SoC, choosing a Raspberry Pi wouldn't be the right choice anyway, schematics or not.
It would be nice if they where an open source hardware company. They don't publish the full schematics of anything, which makes it impossible to do low level programming of the thing in a reasonable manner. I'm going to use up the hardware I bought in ignorance, and find better stuff for the future. https://github.com/raspberrypi/documentation/issues/347
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think we need to wait for further details. RPi has been structure as a for profit company owned by the charity for a long time. This IPO may result in a huge amount of money for that charity. It also doesn't say how much of a stake their selling. The charity may retain the majority share and so continue to have control along with a vast capital reserve to continue doing what they're doing plus a lot more.
The for-profit company has been raising money from investors in order to finance growth. I'm sure that an IPO would result in the charity getting cash but the aim does not seem to be that. Now, the good thing is of course that the accounts of the foundation are public [1]. I am not impressed that only about 10% of their income goes to "charitable activities". [1] https://register-of-charities.charitycommission.gov.uk…
RIP RPi. I thought the whole idea was to produce boards, priced near cost, for educational/inspirational purposes? ie to give today's kids the same kind of intro to computers (you have to program it) as kids enjoyed with the home computers of the 80's. The profit motive inherent to a public company does not seem compatible with that mission.
RIP RPi. I thought the whole idea was to produce boards, priced near cost, for educational/inspirational purposes? ie to give today's kids the same kind of intro to computers (you have to program it) as kids enjoyed with the home computers of the 80's. The profit motive inherent to a public company does not seem compatible with that mission.
We're in a segment of time where companies are so over-valued by VC that when they go public they have no choice but to engage in egregious practices to maintain the stock price. It often alienates the customers/users/supporters that got them there.
Is this the inevitable outcome in all cases or is this a symptom of a flaw in our model?