PINE64 has let its community down

https://drewdevault.com/2022/08/18/PINE64-let-us-down.html

by Bl4ckb0ne • 4 years ago

97 46 4 years ago

koinedad• 4 years ago

I hope this turns around, was looking forward to a new class of phone/tablets

nominusllc2• 4 years ago

Is drew pursuing being a pundit more these days? He always had a certain propensity for commentary, but it was usually about projects, but now seems to be more general commentary. This reads more like a disclaimer of someone who just saw the uproar around Pine64 and said "oh crap, I recommended those. better do some intellectual damage control".

I like you drew, and I pay for your products. I make this post with a sincere face, please do the moves that got you to the dance.

dewey• 4 years ago

He recommended it before, and now he wants to give some context to his other posts so people know he changed his opinion.

I don't see anything wrong with that. It seems to be the right thing to do. The alternative is deleting the posts so people don't get mislead by him recommending PINE64 even though he maybe wouldn't anymore at the current point in time.

jraph4• 4 years ago

I don't read his post as him changing his opinion on recommending Pine64, but as a request to Pine64 to fix the situation, in which he expresses his expectations. I'm rather happy he did: he is read, and I share these expectations. I want Pine64 to succeed (actually, the mobile Linux ecosystem but I think they have a major role in it and can keep having a positive influence) and I think they need to do what Drew wrote for this to happen.

I hope they'll reach out to Martjin and that they find a way to come to an understanding.

ddevault• 4 years ago

I write about the things which are important to me, and this is no different. FOSS belongs to all of us, and we each have a personal responsibility to make sure that the community is a positive force towards the ideals we aspire to. I take this responsibility very seriously.

I have been aware of these developments for a long time, as many PINE64 community members are among my personal friends and collaborators. I had hoped that pressure from others would be enough to bring about change, but seeing PINE64's response to Martijn's post confirmed that it's not. I'm here to do my part in keeping the pressure on PINE64 to do the right thing.

I blog often, and most of my blog posts are not critical in tone. However, critical ones tend to receive more coverage in places like HN. If you'd like to see more diverse writing from me, I encourage you to subscribe to my RSS feed.

abnercoimbre• 4 years ago

However, critical ones tend to receive more coverage in places like HN

Does that incentivize an author to be more dramatic? At least in your case, you blog without the exclusive intention of reaching front pages. But it's interesting to always note the "outrage" incentive exists.

asdajksah2123• 4 years ago

He's given clear recommendations.

Mobile FOSS is important. He has a position where a simple blog post by him can reach the HN front pages. It's a good thing that he's putting his opinion out there in a constructive fashion to help prevent mobile FOSS from decaying.

It would be one thing if he went all Twitter and started telling everyone to leave Pine otherwise they would be morally equivalent to Hitler.

That's not what he did. He has pointed out several alternative steps Pine can take and what he believes the outcome would be, while also pointing out a simple constructive step that he believes would help remedy not just this specific situation, but long term, perhaps irreparable, damage to mobile FOSS.

This comes across as an unambiguously good post to me.

ocdtrekkie• 4 years ago

I think both Martijn and Drew have their hearts in the right place, but I strongly feel a giant blogroll of criticism posts headlining HN for three days is just going to kill the mobile FOSS ecosystem (or leave it only to Librem, which prices out most folks). And the complaint can't be separated from the fact that... people just don't like that Manjaro is the selected "default". Because a default was and is sorely needed, and of course, now that there is one, people have opinions on it.

georgeoliver3• 4 years ago

I don't read it as damage control at all. He wrote a blog post on this topic 6 months ago questioning Pine64's future.

bayindirh• 4 years ago

This reads more like a disclaimer of someone who just saw the uproar around Pine64 and said "oh crap, I recommended those. better do some intellectual damage control".

I don't think so. It all reads that "Hey, Pine64, You're ruining it. Get it together or you'll be in a worse shape".

With his prominence around certain circles, he's just making the situation tougher for Pine64, by making things even more visible, and I support that.

macintux• 4 years ago

Related discussion yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32494659

jraph4• 4 years ago

And the follow-up today: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32507912

Havoc3• 4 years ago

On a more positive note - I’m delighted with my new pinecil soldering iron.

Oh and fun fact - the power bricks of (some) old Asus laptop are the right connector and voltage and wattage.

IgorPartola• 4 years ago

What kind of power does it actually use? The specs seem to indicate that it can take in up to 72W but is that legitimate? I currently have a no name 40W iron and have been eying the Pinecil for a while but don’t know if this will be good enough to solder thicker gauge wire.

Havoc3• 4 years ago

The batch 2s are now 60W max I think. Also depends on the source. Because it has PD it can use weaker PD chargers & just limit output as negotiated

I've found it to heat up much faster and the temp control is also noticeably better than my old no-name iron

No idea how suited it is for thicker gauge

jdrtdrf• 4 years ago

the connector is almost the only thing that matters to make it work -- you can wire up LIPOs with varying numbers of cells and it will happily work, so long as you don't go too far above specs. I've run mine in 3S, 4S, and even a 6S config, though 6S is probably really too far.

Havoc3• 4 years ago

Truth be told for me it was entirely a cost thing. Was looking at name brand chargers that can do 60W power delivery & they cost more than the iron itself.

rjsw• 4 years ago

My thoughts after the discussion yesterday are that I'm going to open up the case of a PineBook Pro or PinePhone Pro anyway so it isn't a big deal to have to swap the eMMC module to another machine to write it. I can live with not being able to boot them from SD.

jraph4• 4 years ago

You don't have to. I have the PinePhone Pro, you can flash Tow-Boot to the SPI without having to fiddle with the hardware. After that, you can chose to boot on the MMC, or the SD Card by pressing some buttons without issue.

But the important issue being discussed here is not a technical issue. It is a community / social issue.

shp0ngle• 4 years ago

I write it as someone who does not follow this space…

…does “letting community down” matters? The phones and the open source seems to be open, can’t you just… put your own OS on there or whatever?

lazyier• 4 years ago

I don't know how much it matters, either. Nor why I should care that much.

Pine64 wants to ship working products. It can't do that if it wants to support 30 different Linux distributions or phone products simultaneously. Most of which don't even have extremely basic features working, like cameras or the ability to make phone calls.

Maybe Manjaro isn't the most ideal choice in the world, but it's a hell of a lot better than not making one.

kaba02• 4 years ago

Why manjaro over arch then?

I’m not trying to start some distro flamewar, but manjaro is considered quite shady compared to basically all the other distros by taking arch maintainer’s work without attribution, as well as the recent HN post about them. Sure, settle on any of the distros, but the odd one.

WhyNotHugo3• 4 years ago

…does “letting community down” matters?

Yes. A lot of contributors from the community put countless hours on making software work on this hardware. And a lot of work still needs to be done.

If the hardware vendor turns its back on the community, that'll drive developers away, demotivate them or burn them out. See also: https://blog.brixit.nl/why-i-left-pine64/

can’t you just… put your own OS on there or whatever?

You can put your own OS on pretty much any hardware. But you need A LOT of effort, and if you drive contributors away, that goal also moves further away. If the hardware vendor doesn't collaborate, it's even harder.

frostwarrior• 4 years ago

Also it's baffling how high the bar is for those who want to do good.

Most mainstream vendors will shit on your privacy and sell information of your entire life as a product and nothing happens to them.

But the privacy-respecting company is always a bad decision away from being crapped all over and cancelled as an option.

georgeoliver3• 4 years ago

The Pinephone is only usable because multiple communities of volunteers have created software for it. Pine64 encouraged this effort with the first wave of phone releases as "community editions". Now it appears that they are abandoning this effort in favor of a distribution, Manjaro, which has not been putting in as much effort on writing software as the other distros; Manjaro even seems to be mismanaging their release of software by prioritizing updates over stability.

One could argue that multiple communities of volunteers is not an efficient way to run a hardware and software project, but I think that overlooks some key aspects of how volunteering works.

chylat2• 4 years ago

+1.

Installing another OS is trivial. Having Tow-Boot on SPI makes it slightly easier, and flashing Tow-Boot to the SPI is easy.

I don't understand how this minor issue has magnified to such drama.

I'm concerned this drama will make it less likely companies engage with communities.

emptyparadise• 4 years ago

What alternatives do we have? Don't mean this as a dismissal, genuinely want to know more about the state of open source hardware.

mpol2• 4 years ago

Librem 5 of course.

The Gigaset phones might be interesting. Built in Germany, rebranded by Volla among others.

Sony Xperia and Fairphone are far away from vanilla Linux I think (someone may correct me).

WhyNotHugo3• 4 years ago

Sony Xperia

Tried one with JollaOS. GPS doesn't work, and headphones didn't work. No idea about the stock experience tho.

Fairphone

It's a pretty Google-centric Android experience.

You can't even get past setup without signing up with Google.

selfhoster11• 4 years ago

Fairphone and Librem are alternatives to Pine64 hardware in the same way that a Lamborghini may be an alternative to a Toyota Yaris. They aren't even remotely in the same pricing band.

WhyNotHugo3• 4 years ago

Not any really. Which is why this situation sucks the most.

georgeoliver3• 4 years ago

It's not necessarily open source hardware, but there's the option of getting a used or new old stock phone that works with a distro like postmarketOS, or /e/ phone, etc.

silisili• 4 years ago

Manjaro is and always has been a joke. I won't even consider PINE products given their relationship...it completely tarnished any reputation they may have had.

cat_plus_plus2• 4 years ago

I have no ties to these people, but say after a pandemic and recession, a corner restaurant raises prices, drops your favorite dish and the rest come in smaller portions and don't taste as good. Would you shout that they let community down and demand an apology, or would you just accept that running a small business is hard and many don't make it, or fail to cater to any customer. Non-Android Linux phone is already a niche, your own distro is niche of a niche, like vegan gluten free keto dishes. Maybe they just can't figure out how to pay for such support rather than being malicious jerks? Even tech giants drop features all the time

mpol2• 4 years ago

Sure, the restaurant will change. But suppose the cooks are volunteers. You need them to make anything usable out of the food that was bought from the wholesaler.

What if, like Pine64, the restaurant only supports, communicates and negotiates with a few volunteers who serve the dish but not prepare it. All while not supporting, communicating and negotiating with the cooks in the kitchen. And now the cooks in the kitchen run away, what is there left to serve? Only ready made dishes, but no new dishes. And what will happen to the restaurant?

The Pine64 community makes the software. Manjaro only serves it to the enduser but doesn't help building it. Current devices are somewhat supported, new devices have big question marks hanging above them.

cat_plus_plus2• 4 years ago

Volunteer kitchens also close all the time. But a lot of times an appropriate response is to start your own volunteer kitchen and try to sustain it better long term rather than yelling at founders of the failing one who may simply not have time or resources. Especially if they gave you a lot of free recipes so that you don't have to figure everything out from scratch.

voakbasda• 4 years ago

This happened with one of our favorite restaurants. Our last meal there (post-pandemic) was half as good and twice the price. They lost our business, because they no longer provide sufficient value.

Given these recent events, I see the same thing happening with Pine64. They have lost their way, and my interest in their products has evaporated.

An “open” hardware platform approaches worthlessness without a viable ecosystem of software that can support it, and their choice to create a monoculture has diminished that possibility too much for me to ignore.

megous• 4 years ago

This seems way overblown, from pretty much all perspectives.

1) Listening to community. People can suggest all kinds of conflicting things, and you just can't satisfy everyone. My experience is that many of my HW modification suggestions were listened to, even some I'd expect the Pine64 might have found a bit frivolous, like desire to have some GPIO exposed as easily accessible solderable pads on the Pinephone keyboard's PCB, so that I can mod the keyboard later on and add some buttons to the bottom side of it, etc. I got some help with aquiring of information about various chips, that I requested, etc. I didn't get everything I wanted. Life is hard I guess. OTOH, Pine64 probably did not listen to some other HW mod suggestions that I have participated in group thinking about in the chats.

I think those were the mods that would require more risky redesign, like sugestion to split DC-IN and USB-IN on the Original Pinephone PMIC to better support the keyboard, or suggestions to redesign battery charging circuitry in Pinebook Pro, so that drivers can limit input current to be able to follow the Type-C/PD specs more closly.

These are risky to follow from us randos on the internet. Even simple suggestions are risky to follow, even if they are correct! Take the addition of diode to prevent some issues with the pinephone keyboard's charging circuitry. The suggestion was followed, but mistakes were made in the long chain that engineering the change takes, and the diode was placed incorrectly and prevented charging the keyboard completely.

2) Bootloader/SPI thing. Yeah it's unpleasant for distros to have to include U-Boot as part of the distro image, especially when things are in flux and fixing bootloader is required for fixing things in general, too, and you have to track non-mainline patches, because Pro support can't be mainlined, yet.

So now there's Tow-Boot to come to the rescue as bit of a center of gravity for U-Boot development/support. Except that it's not really that maintained either with last patches added like 6 months ago https://github.com/Tow-Boot/Tow-Boot/tree/released/boards/pi... despite persistent issues with Pinephone Pro bootlooping, because bootloader allows boot when there's not enough energy in the battery. Some hack patches are available, but not included. Etc.

Also because things are in flux, allowing users to combine arbitrary U-Boot with arbitrary kernel version can lead to all kind of fun things, like hard to explain overheating of the phone, because kernel enabled cpuidle support, and U-Boot version in SPI lacks it and similar things.

3) Diversity/monoculture angle

Focing Tow-Boot can easily be construed as just another thing that Pine64 is forcing on users by default, too. Pinephone/pinephone pro has bootloader diversity, with alternative bootloaders being much better for users in several aspects (like not having charging or bootloop issues, or having multi-boot functionality or GUI) and maybe worse in others. So on one hand Drew is arguing that there's monoculture in distros, but wants to force monoculture in bootloader, using a barely maintained/developed one.

In the end, the most important thing is that there's not technical lockdown (secure boot not enabled). Pine64 has no say in what user can flash or not. Escaping the default bootloader is as easy as booting the preloaded Manjaro and erasing it from SPI and eMMC. The phone or pinebook will then boot whatever user wants to boot from SD card.

chylat2• 4 years ago

I don't feel let down by Pine64.

Pine64 produces affordable hardware that's easily hackable, and with more open schematics than most.

Pine64 fund a great community manager to collate and collaborate with the community.

Without Pine64, I don't think we'd have made as much progress as we have.

At this rate, we risk driving companies away from communities.

PINE64 has let its community down

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