This effort seems less of a "Help us by buying our product" and more a plea for contributors as a FOSS effort, they want to do things like this: "Collabora + Flipper: Opening up the RK3576" https://www.collabora.com/news-and-blog/news-and-events/coll... , and are basically looking for developers and other technology enthusiasts to help them both with the projects themselves, and also try to network (socially) their way into convincing brands and companies to also open up themselves more:
> We're asking the community to help us polish RK3576 support so we can build a truly open platform together. We'd be glad for any kind of contribution, not just code. For example, maybe you can find a way to convince Rockchip to open up that last blob.
Then it seems like they're inviting anyone to participate in the entire development process too, should you be inclined:
> Openness has always been our thing. With Flipper One, we want to go further — not just open-source code, but an open development process. We're publishing our task trackers, internal discussions, half-finished docs, and architectural debates. All the messy stuff companies usually keep behind closed doors.
Seems the post mentions a bunch of stuff people can help with, CTRL+F "help" shows 16 hits even, but I am afraid even this does require actually reading the content. It kind of feels like if you can't be assed to read enough to figure out what they need help with, maybe you don't actually want to help them with even harder and involved stuff than that?
> to help us polish RK3576 support
Having a few various RPi's (as one does), when they've been out of stock, I've looked into the huge variety of similar SBCs (OrangePi, etc) which can be even faster, with more ports and features for around the same money as an equivalent RPi. Many are powered by various RockChip SoCs, which extend up to desktop replacement-level, but the Linux driver support is usually lacking in some important way.
It's not Linux's fault, it's a small group of volunteers struggling with little manufacturer support or documentation. I don't get why RockChip doesn't budget the money in the business plan to fund full driver support for at least some of their more capable chips. I guess maybe too many of these chips are used in non-OS contexts to be worth it?
> I don't get why RockChip doesn't budget the money in the business plan to fund full driver support for at least some of their more capable chips. I guess maybe too many of these chips are used in non-OS contexts to be worth it?
They have drivers in most of these cases; at a bare minimum the silicon was tested by the DV teams, and that generally includes running drivers.[0]
The issue is getting drivers upstreamed rather than just languishing in the vendor BSP.
And the answer for why they don't get upstreamed by the vendor is multifaceted. First off, the drivers in the vendor BSP are simply not at a quality level that would be accepted upstream. On top of that, even if they were at the quality needed, practically that coordination with upstream is a decent amount of work. Additionally, their customers don't really even care about upstream in the vast majority of cases, but instead prefer some vendor outdated fork billed to them as "stable".
[0] Apple for instance is rumored to have an internal Linux distro (or at least kernel fork) for DV of their Apple silicon chips to allow the hardware teams and macos teams to work with fewer cross department dependencies.
I've had the same frustration with rockchip, but if you search the lkml you'll find that they are indeed trying their best: https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/?q=rock-chips.com
the biggest issue is that actually contributing to upstream is an *incredibly* difficult and painful process.
If anyone’s wondering why this replier is so angry, it’s because they spent a lot of time arguing with people further down the comment section over whether this article is too heavily written by AI. (It is.)
It probably irked them to find the top comment had no mention of AI, but is still getting at the same root problem… the article is 2-3x longer than it could be, with lots of rambling and repetition, so it makes for a frustrating read.
> If anyone’s wondering why this replier is so angry
Angry? I'm guessing it's the last part that made me seem angry, I'm not though, just human, and tired of people who say they want to help yet seemingly reading is too much. A bit of straightforward language seems more effective at communicating this, than dancing around the issue.
And why on earth would I care if the top comment mentions AI? I don't even read HN comments in the "points" order, I read comments in chronological order...
Why the vendetta, did I say something annoying to you in the other thread or what's going on?
A good Tl;dr; is never a bad thing in a world where everyone is being pulled in different directions for attention. I agree with you for the most part, but after reading the post, it's a mess and could do with a clear summary at the top...hell, even an index of relevant sections and sub-headings.
I feel like especially when someone is asking something from me, they sort of have an obligation to make it clear, early on, what they're actually asking for.
Tangential but related; when I used to work for BigCo, I would get old acquaintances message me on LinkedIn. They would act like they're really interested in my life and I'd interact, and then after a day or two they would ask me for a referral for a job, I'd do it, and then they wouldn't be all that interested in talking to me anymore.
I wouldn't have had a big problem if they had just messaged me and asked for the favor, but I do find it pretty irritating that they're pretending to be my friend just to get a favor. I don't need more friends, I have plenty. Hitting the "refer" button and uploading a resume takes ten seconds of work on my end, but wasting my time with a pretend conversation takes considerably longer.
Nowadays when I ask for a favor from a friend or acquaintance I pretty much immediately ask for it. I might still want to converse with them afterward, but I figure it's better to lay my intentions out on the table immediately so there's no false expectations.