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Technologist David Bombal has a one-hour interview with Raspberry Pi founder Eben Upton. The interview covers a range of topics, starting with the big questions about unit availability and when more stock will be available.
00:00 - Intro: Tough Environment
00:07 - Intro: Eben Upton hacked the network as a kid
00:40 - Raspberry Pi shortage (stock availability)
07:22 - People say that you're not looking after hobbyists!
10:12 - Raspberry Pi OS is backwards compatible
12:37 - The pain affecting all of us
16:33 - The origin of the Raspberry Pi // How it started
23:16 - Eben hacked the school network // Creating an environment for young hackers
32:05 - Changing the Cambridge and the World
35:00 - African growth and plans
40:03 - General purpose Computer vs iPhone vs Chromebook
43:28 - Possible IPO and Raspberry Pi Foundation
44:50 - The Raspberry Pi RP2040
48:33 - How is Raspberry Pi funded?
49:10 - How is the next product decided?
50:22 - Raspberry Pi Foundation sticking to its roots
51:17 - Advice for the youth or anyone new
56:01 - Changing roles // From tech to business
57:08 - Do you need to go to university? // Do you need degrees?
01:00:05 - Learning from experiences
01:01:44 - Creating opportunities
01:05:05 - Conclusion
No transcript is available and Eben does speak very quickly. Also published on YouTube if you do not have the obligatory LBRY account to block the algorithmic "recommendations".
Previously:
(2023) You Can Build This Raspberry Pi-Powered, 4G Linux Phone
(2023) Raspberry Pi Just Launched a Handy New $12 Tool. Here's What It Can Do
(2023) Raspberry Pi Powered Compute Blade Makes the Cut
(2023) Raspberry Pi Produced 10 Million RP2040s in 2021, More Pi Stores Likely
(2022) Raspberry Pi 5 Not Arriving in 2023 as Company Hopes for a "Recovery Year"
(2022) Raspberry Pi Adds 100,000 Units to Supply Chain, Back to Pre-Pandemic Levels in 2023
... and many more.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Opportunist on Wednesday May 17, @07:55AM (17 children)
This isn't toilet paper and hand sanitizer. We're not talking about a product that people will hoard because they need it, we're talking about a product people hoard to scalp it. And we're looking at a scalping price that goes well over triple the retail price (Pi4s that have a retail sales price of 50-70 bucks go for well over 250).
At that level, it pays for the scalper to throw away half of the Pis they can get their hands at and still not lose money. As long as they can continue to corner the market, they are actually quite well off keeping their prices up and sitting on piles of unsold Pis than to lower the price, because price elasticity isn't that great for these things. People who pay 250 bucks for a Pi 4 will gladly pay 150, but people who refuse to pay scalper prices will not pay 150 either, so there is zero incentive for the scalpers to lower the price. If anything, if availability increases, scalpers will just hoover up more Pis and hike the price up more because anyone paying a ridiculous 250 for a SOC will pay 300, too.
So unless we suddenly see their makers being able to flood the market with numbers that the scalpers cannot soak up fast enough, those prices will not come down.
And that does not bode well for the Raspberry Pi foundation. Until about 2 years ago, RPis were the go-to SOC for any hobbyist projects. There was no real alternative. Sure, of course there were Banana Pis and Orange Pis and a whole load of other knockoffs, but there wasn't really a compelling reason to reach for them, because all projects that you could clone and fork on github were for RPi. So people who don't really have a lot of skill adapting those projects to other brands gladly reached for RPis, because not only were they far more available than the knockoffs (something that's kinda impossible to imagine right now, right?), they also weren't really that much more expensive, usually ranging in the 10-20% range, which translates to about 10 bucks in the price segment they were in. Nothing that would warrant tinkering and fiddling with unfamiliar hardware that has shabby support by its maker (Sinovoip, I'm looking right at you!).
But when we're talking the difference between 40 bucks and 250, people will bite the bullet and start tinkering with that unfamiliar piece of crap.
And at some point, someone with the skill will fork the old Pi project and put down a Banana/Orange/Rock Pi version of it. And suddenly even the clueless person has no reason anymore to fork over hundreds to a scalper to get his hands on a Pi. There's now really an alternative.
And once that market Pi cornered is lost, it won't return. Because then others have established themselves, usually cheaper models, yes, with worse (often way, way worse) support, but I think everyone here knows that even 10 bucks cheaper will convince a lot of people to buy it, because by the time they notice that the support sucks, they already bought.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Wednesday May 17, @08:46AM
This is pretty much what I hope will happen. Someone will reverse some of the older boards and make the gerbers free so you can just order your own and make your own. There are so many projects that depend on them. But they are not worth building at scalper prices. The alternatives would be to redo all those projects to use something else. But that seems to be more work involved. That said I'm not sure it will happen or can happen, I just hope that it does happen.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by canopic jug on Wednesday May 17, @08:47AM (6 children)
Supplies are heading in the direction of normalization again. Eben is apparently aware of that market inertia which is why Raspberry Pi has been working so hard to keep the industrial users in the pipeline. That includes a lot of continuous negotiations about actual production needs. The interview covered that in a lot of detail. The gist is that keeping at least the minimal amount of Raspberry Pis flowing to the industrial sector ensures a greater amount of jobs retained. The hobby community is more flexible and can bounce back, at least for a while longer.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by shrewdsheep on Wednesday May 17, @09:56AM (1 child)
The best move therefore would be to introduce a new model, or maybe just announce it. This would substantially devalue scalper's stockpile, forcing their hand to unload. The announcement of a gap year is really detrimental, IMO.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by aafcac on Wednesday May 17, @12:59PM
Or people could have some patience and just preorder their Pis and just wait. That's what I did when I wanted my Pi 4. It was a bit of a wait, but ultimately, buying from scalpers just encourages more scalping. But if you either just wait or buy from one of the other Pi-like SBCs, the upside to scalping drops a lot. But, I do think that it probably will improve in the future as production gets back to normal after years of pandemic and then all the international sanctions being put into place against various countries.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday May 17, @10:08AM (3 children)
As a hobbyist, I bought a Particle Argon for a project that needed low power. Then the Pi Pico came out and I abandoned the Particle because it didn't seem to have the long term availability of the Pico, and sure enough they discontinued my model not long after, never did provide full software support for all the features of the board, etc. Meanwhile Pi Pico goes in the opposite direction, and the lower price is a bonus.
For a single project, I don't mind a higher price point, the labor far outweighs price considerations. But Pis are so much less expensive than most viable competition that I stock multiple spares, which reduces physical damage anxiety that comes with prototyping hardware, and means that spares are laying around for future projects when I get the time. The Particle would have been a one off but the Pi Pico has 3 working widgets and plans for 3 more when I get the time.
I would really love to get my hands on more Pi Zero 2Ws and 4s, the shortage sucks that way, but cross model compatibility and the half dozen Pis I have already mean that the Pi is still my platform of choice even with the ongoing supply issues.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Wednesday May 17, @01:42PM (2 children)
I got my hands on a Pi4 a good while back and still haven't taken the time to do anything with it.
My hopes is that I'll be able to buy some version of a Pi that will eventually be an acceptable desktop replacement for my Wife. The Pi4 is just a tad slow when it comes to the likes of YouTube, etc. Even moderate browsing is a bit of a chore on the Pi4. I believe I got the 4GB version. At this point, I really wish I'd ponied up for the 8GB version. As part of the issue is 4GB is just not quite enough for a tab hoarder. The 8GB would be much closer, but it's still just a tad slow. Would be awesome, if the Pi5 allowed for native m.2 boot and/or NVMe support. So that you don't have to stuck using a SD card for boot or some extra work to get USB booting to function. Even just getting a functional USB 3.0 as native boot would be "okay".
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday May 17, @03:49PM
Pi4 is an acceptable media server, running LibreElec.
It's not a horrible desktop.
I have one running a custom mp3 juke box player which is a pretty killer app - like having your own radio station but better, but it just corrupted its 2nd microSD card so my next Pi project is putting that app on an external SSD ($14 for 120GB these days and the USB3 adapter is a bit less.)
The thing I don't like much about the Pi 4 is that it can overheat if you aren't careful. But, then, LibreElec on a Pi Zero (slow interface but solid playback) also can overheat too...
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 3, Interesting) by GloomMower on Wednesday May 17, @08:41PM
As LVM pointed out, a better desktop replacement might be a https://www.bee-link.com/ [bee-link.com] Some are new for as low as $135.
(Score: 3, Informative) by GloomMower on Wednesday May 17, @01:01PM (3 children)
> And at some point, someone with the skill will fork the old Pi project and put down a Banana/Orange/Rock Pi version of it. And suddenly even the clueless person has no reason anymore to fork over hundreds to a scalper to get his hands on a Pi. There's now really an alternative.
I've tried to use Orange Pi's and Banana Pi's. There are many different models with different networking and graphics chips. They are not consistent in themselves and the drivers are bad. What use is the Orange Pi's version of the Zero W2 when the wifi drivers are very broken? It needs more than someone to port the project, the kernel drivers need overhauled and fixed.
Armbian is a step in the right direction, but for a lot of them, you download some linux image from a forum that links to a google drive.
(Score: 1) by stack on Wednesday May 17, @03:58PM (1 child)
This is partly why Rocky Linux has made a big investment into a lot of the popular alternative SBC's. They are actively looking for people to assist... :-)
(Score: 2) by Rich on Wednesday May 17, @04:32PM
I would have assumed from its name and the context that this is geared towards Rockchip SBCs. Yet it's just a RHEL clone named in favour of CentOS co-founder Rocky McGaugh. (And I'd rather have it if an SBC-supporting Linux stayed with dpkg, much like everyone else, and was very careful with RedHat's great "innovations").
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Friday May 19, @08:23PM
The Banana Pi Zero is fairly decent once you know how it works, but don't expect ANY support for it. You will spend some time figuring out what's going on, and Google is more of an aid than the manufacturer.
But then again, it's 30 bucks instead of 90 (provided you can get your hands on a RPi Zero in the first place).
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday May 17, @04:53PM (3 children)
There is a higher level market for pi replacements above the $50 boards, I have a couple beelink "$175" mini-PCs. About twice the size of a Pi, 8 G ram, quarter TB flash (don't have to buy a SD card) HDMI and wifi work on Ubuntu out of the box, 2 GHz Intel processor, runs on 12 volts at a couple amps (far less than one most of the time, but it's "peaky" up to 3 A occasionally)
Beelink sells about a zillion different models the one's I bought last winter are I'm sure obsolete with better specs available now.
I mean, yeah, I could spend more money and have a larger pain in the ass by trying to set up a 3 host K8S cluster (using RKE2 for whatever that matters) AND have all the PITA of ARM software instead of intel OS installation, but why bother if the mini-PCs with small SSDs and in a case sell with power supply for $75 less than a Pi4 without storage and without case and without power supply?
Now when you could get Pi for $25 that would be worth some PITA to set it up, but when the intel based competitor has higher performance and sells for cheaper...
Pi's just kind of dead in the market. If it takes "real software" spend less money on a mini-PC. If it is a glorified "blink a LED using an arduino" then get a $5 ESP32 dev board and install circuitpython or micropython (choose your poison, LOL) on it.
(Score: 2) by canopic jug on Wednesday May 17, @05:12PM (1 child)
Beelink sells about a zillion different models the one's I bought last winter are I'm sure obsolete with better specs available now.
The Raspberry Pi OS supports even the oldest models. That's something which can't be easy to hammer out every time the upstream distro, Debian, gets a kernel or other upgrade. However, it is both beneficial to end users and important strategically for the project that they spend the resources to keep it that way.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 17, @06:54PM
x86 and Intel/AMD integrated graphics are better supported by Linux than any weird ARM device, RPi included.
(Score: 2) by GloomMower on Wednesday May 17, @06:41PM
Depends on the use case, big difference in size and power usage, heat dissipation, compared to the Pi Zero W2.
But thanks for sharing, the beelink's look pretty cool for certain use-cases.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday May 19, @03:43PM
People who are mad at RPi and shortages will come crawling back, guaranteed.
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