Why I left Pine64 • Hacker News Board

Re: Why I left Pine64

#141

Post by sho_hn » Wed, Aug 17, 2022, 6:25 PM UTC

commoner wrote: post #127

sho_hn wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having one, I don't feel as good about the PinePower. I bought it together with their Pinecil soldering iron (which is great!) as it seemed like the ideal way to provide power to it, but unfortunately it's a very unreliable combo, with the iron rebooting frequently. Discussion around many similar issue reports online suggests the possibility of bad implementations of USB PD. Perhaps this is more a criticism of the co…

Which PinePower model are you using? In my experience, the Pinecil works flawlessly with the 65W PinePower and the recommended heat-resistant red silicone USB-C cable.

It's the "PinePower – 120W Desktop Power Supply – EU version" and I'm using that same recommended red cable on the PD65W port on the right side of the front plate.

Here's a similar report by someone else: https://www.reddit.com/r/PINE64official/comments/qq7wv8/pine...

I've seen a few others.

Given the complexities of USB PD, it could also be on the side of the iron and then down to the version of IronOS. The other reporter mentions it works fine with other chargers, but that doesn't speak to correctness/compliance. I did not investigate much since my bench PSU is right below the PinePower on my workbench :)

I will say it generally works nicely with the little USB-C-equipped power delivery breakout boards I use in projects, or MCU boards I've tried. I also park my phone on it a lot. So I am getting use out of it.

Re: Why I left Pine64

#142

Post by igneo676 » Wed, Aug 17, 2022, 6:32 PM UTC

nexthash wrote: post #120

I think this is the inevitable outcome of any movement of Linux to the mainstream (Purism has done something similar). As Martijn said in the article, PinePhone devices were operable with 25 different projects . That's 25 different variations of Linux fighting over market share. As Pine enters a growth phase for their business, the consequences of this are going to manifest as paralysis. Improvements and advancements…

I think that's a huge overstatement of how much duplicated effort is involved. The process is much more akin to:

* OS 1 finds a bug in Gnome, reports it and perhaps fixes it

* OS 2 benefits from pulling in the new code as well, fixing bugs

* OS 3 writes a driver for the camera and publishes it as part of their kernel

* OS 4 finds a bug in the camera driver they started using, publishes their fix

Yes, there's some overheard to running 25 projects. There's also a huge downfall to excluding 24 projects from contributing as first class members of the project. To boot, it's also a situation where the more contributions make the fixes contributed even more battle tested and beneficial.

tl;dr - OSS development styles don't map onto commercial development styles cleanly

Re: Why I left Pine64

#143

Post by analognoise » Wed, Aug 17, 2022, 6:33 PM UTC

cycomanic wrote: post #109

bruce511 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like you're inferring qualities in OSS that don't (explicitly) exist. This is not uncommon. Specifically; >> It seems the large corporations like FANGs are largely pushing OSS to use volunteer work to make software a commodity Why would you expect them to do anything different? Companies are driven by profit, not some sense of morality. OSS licenses allow them, even encourage them, to trade volunteer (aka free…

> I feel like you're inferring qualities in OSS that don't (explicitly) exist. This is not uncommon. Specifically; > >> It seems the large corporations like FANGs are largely pushing OSS to use volunteer work to make software a commodity > Why would you expect them to do anything different? Companies are driven by profit, not some sense of morality. OSS licenses allow them, even encourage them, to trade volunteer (ak…

I mean I think FOSS is objectively bad for humanity. But I'm an outlier.

Re: Why I left Pine64

#144

Post by GrumpyNl » Wed, Aug 17, 2022, 6:40 PM UTC

3np wrote: post #19

Unless PINE64 changes course hard, I think this will be the moment they died, so to say. They may keep making SBCs etc alongside other vendors but the phones/tablets/laptops/watches/etc would continue being novelties and realistically majority e-waste. Really quite sad. If I'd name one single person in the FLOSS community who's done the most good for mobile open source, it'd be OP. Thank you so much for your service,…

I hope they dont, the PINE64 works great for me and i have 12 of them in production as QR-code entrance scanners.

Re: Why I left Pine64

#145

Post by noname120 » Wed, Aug 17, 2022, 6:42 PM UTC

LtWorf wrote: post #124

> And in my role for the postmarketOS distribution, I developed the camera stack. So now i know whom to blame for the fact that the camera app crashes 90% of the times before I manage to take a photo.

You know whom to thank for the camera stack actually existing.

Unpaid FOSS developers owe you absolutely nothing. This kind of self-entitled behavior and snarky comments are some of the major reasons why unpaid devs burn out and stop contributing.

Don't be one of the people to blame for developer exodus away from FOSS.

Re: Why I left Pine64

#146

Post by ge96 » Wed, Aug 17, 2022, 6:46 PM UTC

Hope Pine64 still continues.

Recently topics such as "injecting ads into homescreen" make me fear for my phone.

Re: Why I left Pine64

#147

Post by jprd » Wed, Aug 17, 2022, 6:47 PM UTC

sgbeal wrote: post #116

ddevault wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but they probably should not be buying experimental products for this purpose. Set your expectations according to your purchases. The Pine store makes it abundantly clear that this is not a device which you can expect to plug-and-play for whatever use-case you have.

> Yes, but they probably should not be buying experimental products for this purpose. You misunderstand. i didn't back the phone/laptop. i backed the first pine64 boards, which were marketed as being much more capable than they turned out to be: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/pine64/pine-a64-first-1...

I have one of the original Kickstarter A64+, it has happily run low disk I/O tasks for years (on account of the uSDcard).

Right now it runs some services through Docker and is pretty dang solid.

I've never taken any manufacturer's performance claims too seriously, there's always an angle.

Re: Why I left Pine64

#148

Post by asdfasdf23r23r » Wed, Aug 17, 2022, 6:49 PM UTC

zozbot234 wrote: post #133

nexthash wrote: post #120

I think this is the inevitable outcome of any movement of Linux to the mainstream (Purism has done something similar). As Martijn said in the article, PinePhone devices were operable with 25 different projects . That's 25 different variations of Linux fighting over market share. As Pine enters a growth phase for their business, the consequences of this are going to manifest as paralysis. Improvements and advancements…

> 25x duplicated effort People keep saying this, like too much effort is a bad thing. But OP makes it clear that there's very little duplication of effort in the Linux-on-phone/mobile/SBC community - most developments are shared community-wide. There are some technical divergences (Alpine/musl vs. glibc- and init-based systems for example) that can impact direct compatibility, but they're very minor.

Correct. This is non-sense speak by non-developers. Greedy non-developers.

they "sell" it as "25x duplicated effort" but in reality, there's 25x little tweaks to a build system, that give thousands of people zero effort to port their known platform right away. Now those thousands of people will have REAL effort to adapt their knowledge and existing ways to fit that one holy way enforced by the device true owners.

In reality it is "25x places where i will have to hide my plan for monetize this". Just like most other projects, greed always destroy everything the community help build in good will.

Re: Why I left Pine64

#149

Post by nexthash » Wed, Aug 17, 2022, 6:53 PM UTC

igneo676 wrote: post #142

nexthash wrote: post #120

I think this is the inevitable outcome of any movement of Linux to the mainstream (Purism has done something similar). As Martijn said in the article, PinePhone devices were operable with 25 different projects . That's 25 different variations of Linux fighting over market share. As Pine enters a growth phase for their business, the consequences of this are going to manifest as paralysis. Improvements and advancements…

I think that's a huge overstatement of how much duplicated effort is involved. The process is much more akin to: * OS 1 finds a bug in Gnome, reports it and perhaps fixes it * OS 2 benefits from pulling in the new code as well, fixing bugs * OS 3 writes a driver for the camera and publishes it as part of their kernel * OS 4 finds a bug in the camera driver they started using, publishes their fix Yes, there's some ove…

I guess it comes down to that: will Pine64 take an OSS development approach or a commercial development approach? I've been swimming on the question of why Linux isn't more accessible to more people for a while, and have come to believe that a commercial approach is the only way Linux can achieve the work-out-of-the-box dream.

Commercial development allows you to afford to control the hardware, make deals with other companies, and pay people to build compatibility with your system (i.e. Nvidia), which is what Microsoft and Apple did to keep their position. Server distros like Debian, Ubuntu, and Redhat already have deep foundational and corporate backing, and are a joy to use.

There are definitely drawbacks such as vendor lock-in and all the issues that come with corporate vs community control of the software. However, I believe having a single center of development and revenue (to pay for the development), while at the same time having fully open source software and hardware is possible and would have a huge impact.

Re: Why I left Pine64

#150

Post by nexthash » Wed, Aug 17, 2022, 6:59 PM UTC

asdfasdf23r23r wrote: post #148

zozbot234 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 25x duplicated effort People keep saying this, like too much effort is a bad thing. But OP makes it clear that there's very little duplication of effort in the Linux-on-phone/mobile/SBC community - most developments are shared community-wide. There are some technical divergences (Alpine/musl vs. glibc- and init-based systems for example) that can impact direct compatibility, but they're very minor.

Correct. This is non-sense speak by non-developers. Greedy non-developers. they "sell" it as "25x duplicated effort" but in reality, there's 25x little tweaks to a build system, that give thousands of people zero effort to port their known platform right away. Now those thousands of people will have REAL effort to adapt their knowledge and existing ways to fit that one holy way enforced by the device true owners. In…

I would like to disagree with your characterization. I use Linux distros regularly at work (Amazon Linux), in school (Rocky Linux, currently studying), and at home (Ubuntu) when hacking together various projects. I've seen firsthand the issues that come with trying to get a distro to interop with Bluetooth, sound, and software not quite designed for it.

This is not a zero sum game: I believe we can have both an OSS approach to Linux while at the same time having a channel of commercial development that brings more adoption (and fun, hackable devices!). This "one holy way" and the multitude of community-based distros can coexist, in the same way that commercial software companies and OSS communities have already learned to.