00:00SPEAKER- Hey everybody.
00:01SPEAKER- Hi, wait, I'm not everybody, but hi.
00:04SPEAKER- Well, you're part of the subset that is everybody.
00:06SPEAKER- I'm somebody.
00:08SPEAKER- This week we have something special planned for you all.
00:10SPEAKERWe had a, this is an episode that wouldn't have actually
00:13SPEAKERexisted without the tech pod as it is,
00:16SPEAKERbut it's specifically the tech pod discord.
00:18SPEAKERWe have a representative from the Pine 64 group
00:24SPEAKERcoming on the show to talk about their products
00:26SPEAKERand their open source stuff and all that.
00:28SPEAKERAnd it's, we thought it'd be an interesting thing
00:30SPEAKERto have on both feeds, honestly.
00:32SPEAKERIt's on the FOSBOD feed, it's on the tech pod feed.
00:34SPEAKERWe apologize for the double dip this week.
00:36SPEAKER- Yeah, you're traveling.
00:39SPEAKER- I'm going to, I've been dealing with some family stuff
00:41SPEAKERand yeah, and I'm not, it was a good time
00:45SPEAKERto have a FOSBOD episode.
00:47SPEAKERAlso, Brad, you're in the middle of the launch
00:50SPEAKERof a million games or maybe the launch of eight games
00:52SPEAKERas the case may be.
00:53SPEAKER- Yes.
00:54SPEAKER- So it's been a lot of talking for both of us this week.
00:57SPEAKER- Games and not E3 streams.
01:00SPEAKERLike they would be E3 streams if E3 hadn't died.
01:03SPEAKER- Nope, there's no E3, just streams.
01:05SPEAKERBut yeah, we'll be back next week with a regular episode
01:08SPEAKERand thank you all for listening
01:11SPEAKERand stay tuned till the end of the show
01:12SPEAKERfor the patron thank yous.
01:14SPEAKER(upbeat music)
01:21SPEAKERI think one of my favorite categories of hardware
01:25SPEAKERis the thing that you hear about and you're like,
01:28SPEAKERwow, that sounds too good to be true, right?
01:30SPEAKER- Yeah, it's like the thing you would love to get
01:32SPEAKERon Christmas morning.
01:34SPEAKER- Yeah, or like, hey, here's a CPU from Intel
01:37SPEAKERor AMD that you can overclock 50% over its stock clocks
01:42SPEAKERor some sort of device that you're like,
01:47SPEAKERwow, that is not just incredible,
01:49SPEAKERit's better than anything I have,
01:50SPEAKERbut also it's very, very inexpensive.
01:52SPEAKER- Yes, it's the deep bang for the buck category of product.
01:56SPEAKER- Exactly, and there's one of those that came up for us
01:59SPEAKERfairly recently in the tech pod discord.
02:01SPEAKERIt initially sounded like, and I actually say this,
02:03SPEAKERI actually say this in the interview,
02:05SPEAKERit sounded like an internet of shit thing, right?
02:07SPEAKERLike some unnecessarily connected device
02:10SPEAKERwith firmware and all sorts of nonsense
02:12SPEAKERwhen you've had an analog thing that's been built
02:15SPEAKERfor the same way since the '50s in your house already.
02:20SPEAKERAnd then I got it, and I was like, this is incredible.
02:23SPEAKERThis is an incredible device.
02:25SPEAKERIt's changed the way I do that kind of work,
02:27SPEAKERand it costs like $25.
02:29SPEAKERWe're talking about the PineSil, in case you didn't know.
02:31SPEAKERIt's an open source RISC-V powered soldering iron
02:36SPEAKERthat is powered off of a USB-C plug,
02:38SPEAKERor you can use a barrel connector if you want.
02:40SPEAKERYou can plug it into a lot of USB power supplies.
02:43SPEAKERIt has specific requirements,
02:45SPEAKERbut they're still readily available.
02:48SPEAKERAnd it's easily the best soldering iron I've ever owned.
02:51SPEAKER- I follow the exact same trajectory you did.
02:53SPEAKERThe first time you told me about it,
02:54SPEAKERI was like, why in God's name
02:55SPEAKERdo we need our soldering irons to be smart now?
02:57SPEAKERAnd now that I bought one and used it, I totally get it.
03:00SPEAKERAnd now we are following that trail
03:03SPEAKERall the way back to the source
03:04SPEAKERand talking to the company that makes both that
03:06SPEAKERand a bunch of other products
03:07SPEAKERthat also follow that same philosophy.
03:10SPEAKER(upbeat music)
03:18SPEAKER(upbeat music)
03:28SPEAKER- Welcome to the FOSPOD.
03:30SPEAKERI'm Will.
03:31SPEAKER- I'm Brad.
03:32SPEAKER- This week's FOSPOD is brought to you by Google Open Source.
03:34SPEAKERThey bring all of the value of open source to Google
03:36SPEAKERand all of the resources of Google to open source.
03:39SPEAKERBrad, I'm really excited to have this conversation
03:42SPEAKER'cause I didn't fully appreciate how broad
03:44SPEAKERthe range of products that Pine64 creates.
03:49SPEAKERI didn't know about their...
03:50SPEAKERLike coming into this interview
03:51SPEAKERwhere we started doing the research,
03:52SPEAKERI didn't know anything about the origins of the company,
03:55SPEAKERwhat they've been doing,
03:56SPEAKERwhat they're looking forward in the future,
03:58SPEAKERwhat they do off as kind of weird side projects.
04:00SPEAKERIt's kind of all side projects.
04:02SPEAKERIt's an interesting company.
04:03SPEAKERIt's an interesting application of open source.
04:06SPEAKERThey are, I think, probably a more open hardware company
04:11SPEAKERthan any of the other hardware folks we've talked to.
04:13SPEAKERAnd we're gonna talk to Łukasz Aronczynski,
04:16SPEAKERwho's the senior advisor at the Pine64 project,
04:18SPEAKERabout the whole thing right now.
04:20SPEAKERBefore we get any further,
04:22SPEAKERcan you kind of give us the rundown
04:24SPEAKERof the breadth of the offering
04:26SPEAKERin all the different places that Pine64 has their hands in?
04:32SPEAKER- Yes.
04:32SPEAKERAnd we never thought we'd be making a soldering iron.
04:35SPEAKERIt was supposed to be a complete side project, but yes.
04:38SPEAKERSo soldering iron, a smartwatch, amazing piece of kit,
04:43SPEAKERwhich we're really proud of.
04:45SPEAKERTwo smartphones, the PinePhone and PinePhone Pro,
04:48SPEAKERcurrently a laptop, PineBook Pro.
04:51SPEAKERTablets, which includes an e-paper reader,
04:56SPEAKERwhich isn't available to the public per se,
04:58SPEAKERbut if you're a developer, you can get a unit to develop on.
05:03SPEAKERTwo tablets, one of which is the first tablet
05:05SPEAKERwith a RISC-V SoC in the world, at least to my knowledge,
05:10SPEAKERas well as a number of maker hardware,
05:13SPEAKERincluding quite specialized power supply units
05:19SPEAKERand accessories for the phone,
05:22SPEAKERsuch as the specialized back cases,
05:24SPEAKERwhich allow the phone's functionality to be expanded,
05:29SPEAKERas well as obviously a whole wide range
05:31SPEAKERof single board computers.
05:32SPEAKER- Yeah, I was gonna say the single board computers
05:34SPEAKERare everything from the standard single board computers
05:38SPEAKERthat we all know and love, all the way up to things
05:41SPEAKERthat are IP cameras that are powered over ethernet
05:44SPEAKERthat you can jam into whatever case you want.
05:47SPEAKERIt's a fascinating range of projects.
05:49SPEAKERHow did you get involved?
05:50SPEAKERHow'd you get started with the project?
05:51SPEAKERHow'd you get involved?
05:53SPEAKER- I started in 2015, right after the Kickstarter.
05:59SPEAKERSo I wasn't a part of the Kickstarter campaign.
06:01SPEAKERI was brought in after the Kickstarter
06:04SPEAKERto sort of find the way forward for the project
06:07SPEAKERand figure out what we're doing next.
06:09SPEAKER- This was for the single board computer,
06:10SPEAKERthe first single board computer?
06:11SPEAKER- Correct, so although the Pine64 Model A
06:17SPEAKERwas commercially a significant success,
06:20SPEAKERfrom a marketing and community perspective,
06:23SPEAKERit didn't go particularly well.
06:26SPEAKERSo at that time, there was a lot of sort of soul searching
06:29SPEAKERwithin the project, trying to figure out
06:32SPEAKERwhat's the next step, if there is a next step actually
06:35SPEAKERfor a short period of time.
06:37SPEAKERAnd I was brought on board, the founder, TLM,
06:41SPEAKERhe flew into London where I lived at a time.
06:43SPEAKERHe met me for a pint and he said, "So what do you think?
06:47SPEAKER"Do you think we can build a community, run this thing,
06:50SPEAKER"and take it forward?"
06:52SPEAKERAnd I said, "Yeah, I think it's doable.
06:54SPEAKER"Nothing is lost at this point in time.
06:56SPEAKER"We can totally give it a go."
06:58SPEAKERAnd we decided to pursue a number of other products.
07:03SPEAKER- How was that first board a failure?
07:05SPEAKERI just had a curiosity from a community standpoint.
07:07SPEAKER- Right, so the first point of failure was
07:10SPEAKERthat although TL is an excellent engineer
07:15SPEAKERand a very well established sort of businessman,
07:18SPEAKERan entrepreneur, he at the time had very little
07:22SPEAKERmarketing capabilities of his own.
07:24SPEAKERSo what they did, him and the co-founder,
07:28SPEAKERwas they basically hired a marketing company
07:33SPEAKERto run the Kickstarter.
07:34SPEAKERAnd probably he wasn't even fully aware
07:38SPEAKERof where they're gonna take this.
07:40SPEAKERAnd instead of the vision, which was always there,
07:43SPEAKERto build a piece of hardware and build a software community
07:45SPEAKERaround it, bringing developers on board,
07:49SPEAKERwhat happened was that the advertisement went out
07:53SPEAKERas an end-user finished product.
07:55SPEAKERSo that brought in, in a sense, the wrong crowd initially
07:59SPEAKERof people who experienced this sort of,
08:00SPEAKERa Raspberry Pi sort of experience out of the box,
08:03SPEAKERwhich certainly was not the case at the time.
08:06SPEAKER- And the idea of that first board was to build a 60,
08:08SPEAKERat the time Raspberry Pis were only 32-bit ARM computers,
08:11SPEAKERand the idea was to build a 64-bit single board computer
08:15SPEAKERthat was maybe more open or just more community-driven
08:19SPEAKERat the time?
08:20SPEAKER- More community-driven, aimed at a different,
08:24SPEAKERso the idea was to have it aimed at a different
08:26SPEAKERsort of demographic, to have it aimed at developers
08:29SPEAKERwho would really work on the 64-bit architecture on ARM,
08:32SPEAKERwhich wasn't really that well established at the time.
08:35SPEAKER- Ah, and the idea is if there's hardware,
08:37SPEAKERthen you can kickstart that community,
08:39SPEAKERand then you got a bunch of consumers in
08:41SPEAKERwho just wanted to run Plex and emulators
08:44SPEAKERon their A64 boards and were disappointed
08:47SPEAKERbecause it was a little wrong still.
08:49SPEAKER- This is absolutely what happened in a nutshell, yes.
08:52SPEAKERSo, you know, soon after the kickstart,
08:54SPEAKERthere was definitely, you know, a sense of,
08:56SPEAKERso what do we do now, right?
08:58SPEAKERBecause the product is good, the board was good,
09:00SPEAKERthe developers who received it were quite happy.
09:03SPEAKERThe issue where all the other people
09:05SPEAKERwho now had a negative experience
09:07SPEAKERbecause they couldn't do all the things
09:08SPEAKERthat they expected to be able to do with it,
09:11SPEAKERand then they felt, you know, lied to.
09:14SPEAKERSo when I was brought in, you know,
09:18SPEAKERI was there as a sort of liaison between the community,
09:22SPEAKERthat being both the development community
09:24SPEAKERas well as regular end users and the pine store,
09:27SPEAKERthe company, to sort of figure out
09:31SPEAKERwhere we're going collectively from there on.
09:35SPEAKER- If we could step back to the period
09:37SPEAKERbefore the Kickstarter for just a minute,
09:39SPEAKERI know TL, I was surprised to find out
09:42SPEAKERTL was responsible for the popcorn hour,
09:44SPEAKERwhich is a name I haven't seen in a long time,
09:45SPEAKERbut I'm curious if his experience with that product
09:50SPEAKERinformed or kind of led to him veering in this direction,
09:53SPEAKERbecause I never owned one myself,
09:55SPEAKERbut it was one of the first really big kind of phenomenons
09:59SPEAKERin the set top kind of media player space.
10:03SPEAKERYou know, like early Apple TV, Roku, that type of stuff.
10:05SPEAKERLike I remember like anecdotally
10:07SPEAKERjust seeing people all over the place
10:09SPEAKERsuper passionate about their popcorn hours.
10:11SPEAKERAnd I'm curious, A, was there anything like open source
10:14SPEAKERand community oriented about the popcorn hour
10:16SPEAKERand B, you know, is that kind of what led
10:18SPEAKERto TL going in this direction?
10:21SPEAKER- Yeah, for sure it did.
10:22SPEAKERI mean, I don't know the story in its entirety.
10:25SPEAKERYou would have to ask him about this, I suppose,
10:27SPEAKERbut it's my understanding that what happened
10:30SPEAKERwas that obviously when he was doing
10:31SPEAKERthe popcorn hour video audio players at the time,
10:35SPEAKERthere were a number of them
10:37SPEAKERwhich gathered a significant following
10:40SPEAKERand among those who participated were Linux developers
10:44SPEAKERand open source developers.
10:46SPEAKERAnd they brought open software to these SOCs.
10:50SPEAKERI believe these were quite specialized sigma SOCs
10:53SPEAKERused in these devices.
10:55SPEAKERAnd I know for a fact that TL saw that a product
11:00SPEAKERwhich exists, which is in a sense a finished product
11:04SPEAKERon launch, those were very much end user devices
11:06SPEAKERfrom the get-go.
11:07SPEAKERThese weren't, these were sort of a different,
11:11SPEAKERthey were aimed at a different audience
11:12SPEAKERat audio files specifically.
11:15SPEAKERHe saw that a device can be made better or improved upon
11:19SPEAKERby having open source community members kind of work on it.
11:23SPEAKERAnd so in this way, the company opened up
11:27SPEAKERa little bit as well, because they saw, you know,
11:30SPEAKERhow this contribution is ultimately also profitable to them,
11:35SPEAKERwhich isn't completely obvious if you're running
11:38SPEAKERthis sort of company, you know, it may seem obvious to us now
11:41SPEAKERespecially from where I'm saying, but back then,
11:44SPEAKERespecially back then in Asia, this wasn't necessarily
11:47SPEAKERa very obvious decision and choice to make, right?
11:50SPEAKERSo they went to sigma, they said, you know,
11:52SPEAKERhow much of this information can we disclose?
11:54SPEAKERHow much can we provide it to community members?
11:57SPEAKERAnd, you know, ultimately this certainly this experience,
12:00SPEAKERthis first encounter with open source
12:01SPEAKERand how it can make an existing product better
12:04SPEAKERand extend this lifetime has certainly given him
12:08SPEAKERa sort of an idea to explore the open source world further.
12:12SPEAKER- It's hard to remember now, but at that time,
12:14SPEAKERthe other people that were building hardware
12:16SPEAKERthat was based on Linux were actively working
12:19SPEAKERagainst the communities in a lot of cases,
12:20SPEAKERlike the router manufacturers and those folks were just,
12:24SPEAKERthey weren't breaking the rules of the license,
12:27SPEAKERbut they were definitely weren't making it easy
12:29SPEAKERto participate for end users.
12:31SPEAKERAnd that was, I think, the exciting thing to me
12:33SPEAKERabout Popcorn Hour, the community first approach
12:35SPEAKERis something that we've talked to a bunch of projects
12:37SPEAKERat this time, and there's a handful of communities
12:39SPEAKERthat actually work, that operate that way.
12:42SPEAKERIt's interesting, like, does that go all the way down
12:44SPEAKERto like product decisions and what direction
12:47SPEAKERyou're gonna go next or like where does the line
12:49SPEAKERbetween what you all wanna do internally
12:52SPEAKERand what the community wants to do,
12:53SPEAKERhow do you decide where that line is, I guess,
12:55SPEAKERis the first place to start?
12:57SPEAKER- Excellent question, so this has shifted over the years.
13:00SPEAKERRight now, the project is very large.
13:04SPEAKERInitially, when we started and when I kind of got
13:06SPEAKERinto the position of community manager
13:09SPEAKERand brought in people from established projects on board,
13:11SPEAKERas well as community developers and kind of huddled them
13:14SPEAKERtogether and said, so what do you guys wanna do next?
13:16SPEAKERAnd what we used to do was we built a piece of hardware,
13:20SPEAKERwe sent it out to the developers,
13:22SPEAKERthey gave direct feedback, they told us what they want.
13:26SPEAKERThis came back to us, and then when we had something
13:30SPEAKERthat would resemble an early prototype,
13:32SPEAKERwe would share it with the community
13:34SPEAKERand hear the community's feedback, so like end users'
13:36SPEAKERfeedback, and this worked for a time.
13:39SPEAKERIn terms of scale, it becomes quite difficult
13:43SPEAKERwhen you have a lot of people who wanna chip in
13:47SPEAKERand have their say, and then, you know,
13:50SPEAKERwhen you ask a question, when you ask people a question,
13:53SPEAKERyou have to be sure that you wanna hear the answer.
13:55SPEAKERSo like, last thing which we did where we involved
13:59SPEAKERthe entire community was the keyboard for the PinePhone
14:02SPEAKERand the PinePhone Pro, and that made us realize
14:08SPEAKERhow difficult it is sometime now with the size
14:10SPEAKERof the project to open it up to discussion,
14:12SPEAKERespecially something as subjective as a keyboard layout
14:15SPEAKERand all the things that people wanna see in such a thing.
14:18SPEAKERIt becomes quite overwhelming when you get so much feedback
14:21SPEAKERand you have to figure out, right now we asked,
14:24SPEAKERso now we are in this position where if we wouldn't ask,
14:27SPEAKERwe could have gone and done something
14:29SPEAKERthat we thought was right, but now that we asked,
14:31SPEAKERwe have to incorporate some of this feedback
14:34SPEAKERand the best of it, so we felt obliged to do so,
14:37SPEAKERbut this has ultimately delayed the keyboard project
14:40SPEAKERby, I don't remember, by nearly a year.
14:44SPEAKERSo, but in principle, what we do right now internally
14:47SPEAKERis we come up with an idea of what we wanna do.
14:50SPEAKERSo let's say it's another phone,
14:52SPEAKERwhatever it is that we wanna do.
14:54SPEAKERSo we have an idea for a phone, and then we look around
14:57SPEAKERand see what components are available to us
14:59SPEAKERat a reasonable price and what we can be sure
15:04SPEAKERis gonna be available to us three years down the road as well
15:08SPEAKERand then we establish, we make contact with the vendors
15:11SPEAKERand stuff like that.
15:12SPEAKERWe usually, we have boots on the ground in Shenzhen,
15:15SPEAKERso we have people in Shenzhen, so it's, you know,
15:18SPEAKERwe like to have direct contact with the vendors
15:21SPEAKERto talk to them and have a proper understanding
15:24SPEAKERof how their supply chain looks like.
15:27SPEAKERSo yeah, so we figure out what we wanna do,
15:30SPEAKERwhat we can base it upon.
15:33SPEAKEROnly then do we bring in developers
15:35SPEAKERfrom within the closest circle to talk about it, right?
15:39SPEAKERWe don't open everything up to the choice
15:42SPEAKERof even the closest community because if you ask,
15:45SPEAKERespecially the very techie people, you know,
15:47SPEAKERwhat would you like to see in like in your next phone,
15:49SPEAKERyou're gonna hear that they want really high-end stuff
15:52SPEAKERand you know, all of these sort of things,
15:54SPEAKERbut ultimately nobody's gonna buy it.
15:56SPEAKERSo we make some of the business decision quite early
15:59SPEAKERabout what makes sense for us to make,
16:01SPEAKERbut then, you know, choice of cameras, choice of LCD panel,
16:06SPEAKERchoice of modem even, and stuff like that,
16:08SPEAKERthis is largely up to debate with the closest of the closest
16:11SPEAKERand then we open it further and further and further
16:13SPEAKERand then we can present it to the community broadly.
16:16SPEAKER- It's interesting because, you know,
16:18SPEAKERon the software projects that are more community-driven,
16:21SPEAKERit's a feature choice, right?
16:22SPEAKERIt's like, hey, do we add support for this file format
16:25SPEAKERor something like that?
16:26SPEAKERFor you all, your choices are so tied
16:30SPEAKERto what hardware is available and what fits into the,
16:33SPEAKERlike, you know, stuff like thermal budgets
16:35SPEAKERand like, it's incredibly, to me,
16:38SPEAKERit's the thing that makes this project so neat
16:39SPEAKERis that there's any community involvement at all
16:43SPEAKERin the hardware decisions and that side of it
16:46SPEAKERand you're not just saying, hey,
16:47SPEAKERhere's the hardware platform we built this time,
16:49SPEAKERwhich is essentially what Raspberry Pi does, right?
16:51SPEAKERThey're like, hey, here's what we built.
16:53SPEAKERSee what you all can, let's see what you all can do with it
16:55SPEAKERand then we'll figure out what you've done
16:57SPEAKERand integrate that stuff into the next rev.
16:59SPEAKER- Yeah, I kind of, I want to read a quote real quick
17:02SPEAKERfrom your philosophy page.
17:04SPEAKERI mean, you've touched on this pretty directly already,
17:06SPEAKERbut still just to see it stated kind of dogmatically
17:08SPEAKERis just really unique for this kind of project.
17:11SPEAKERWe usually announce what we're working on
17:12SPEAKERwell ahead of the shipping date
17:13SPEAKERmany months before a device is released
17:15SPEAKERso that you have plenty of time to request product features,
17:18SPEAKERsuggest changes, ask for and make changes
17:20SPEAKERto documentation, et cetera,
17:21SPEAKERbefore the first iteration of the device
17:23SPEAKERrolls off the factory line.
17:24SPEAKERSo I'm curious, is this the type of thing
17:27SPEAKERthat you think maybe is only possible in recent years
17:30SPEAKERnow that we're in this age of kind of rapid prototyping
17:33SPEAKERand like kind of affordable,
17:35SPEAKERsmaller batch hardware manufacturing?
17:37SPEAKERI mean, is this the type of thing that it seems like
17:40SPEAKERwould have been impossible like a decade ago?
17:45SPEAKER- Yes, certainly.
17:46SPEAKERI mean, for sure this has a lot to do with it.
17:49SPEAKERThe other thing, which, you know,
17:51SPEAKERwe touched on TL, the founder of Pine64,
17:55SPEAKERa part of the reason why we are able to do this
17:59SPEAKERis because we have the abilities to turn around products
18:03SPEAKERvery quickly in a prototype fashion
18:05SPEAKERin Shenzhen in China, ultimately, right?
18:09SPEAKERSo we can have three or four or five prototypes
18:12SPEAKERor something built with very different components
18:16SPEAKERinside them.
18:17SPEAKERNow these are outrageously expensive
18:19SPEAKERif you're building one of something.
18:20SPEAKERSo, you know, it's sometimes it's good to build, you know,
18:23SPEAKERthree or four different options of potential hardware.
18:27SPEAKERAnd especially if it's quite modular,
18:29SPEAKERthen developers can basically just, you know,
18:31SPEAKERmail it between each other or FedEx it between each other
18:34SPEAKERand kind of take a look at the different versions
18:37SPEAKERand options which they have.
18:39SPEAKERSo yes, it has become possible probably
18:42SPEAKERin the past five years, but I don't think it is possible to,
18:47SPEAKERespecially when you have something as complex as a phone,
18:51SPEAKERI don't think, you know, rapid prototyping helps much here.
18:53SPEAKERYou have to have access to the actual vendors
18:57SPEAKERand people who know that there is a reason
19:01SPEAKERwhy you wanna build one or five of something, right?
19:04SPEAKERBecause they know that you're gonna come back
19:06SPEAKERand have a hundred, a thousand, 10,000
19:08SPEAKERor however many hundred thousand units later, yeah.
19:12SPEAKER- The relationships with the people
19:13SPEAKERthat run the factories, it turns out,
19:15SPEAKERI guess in order to get them to make one of them for you,
19:17SPEAKERyou have to, they have to know you're gonna come back
19:19SPEAKERand make it worth their time later.
19:20SPEAKER- Yes, yes, because even if a prototype costs,
19:23SPEAKERsay a 10 fold or 20 fold of the finished product,
19:27SPEAKERultimately you're taking up a lot of time
19:30SPEAKERalso of their staff and engineers.
19:32SPEAKERSo it's, if you are not somebody who has a track record,
19:38SPEAKERespecially these days after the pandemic,
19:41SPEAKERwhen a lot of companies, a lot of factories in China
19:44SPEAKERhave gone out of business during the pandemic, right?
19:47SPEAKERThey have established clients.
19:51SPEAKERMany of them are not super keen
19:53SPEAKERon taking on experimental hardware.
19:57SPEAKER- Well, yeah, new risk.
19:58SPEAKERIt's a risk averse business to start with, right?
20:01SPEAKERHow many people work for Pine64?
20:04SPEAKERLike how many people are involved with the,
20:06SPEAKERare part of the full-time business now?
20:08SPEAKER- There's a lot.
20:10SPEAKERIn the United States, you have three people, including TL.
20:14SPEAKERHere in Europe, you have two people, one me being included.
20:18SPEAKERBut then Malaysia is where there's R&D
20:23SPEAKERand there's quite a few people working there.
20:26SPEAKERHong Kong is where the main office is currently.
20:28SPEAKERThere's quite a few people working there.
20:30SPEAKERThat's where you have support, dispatch and stuff like that.
20:34SPEAKERAnd then there's contractors in Shenzhen,
20:36SPEAKERwho including like scouts and people
20:39SPEAKERwho we have a long running relationship for,
20:42SPEAKERlike contact with vendors and other distributions,
20:48SPEAKERdistributors and stuff.
20:49SPEAKER- And those folks find distributors in factories
20:52SPEAKERand like logistics stuff for shipping finished project
20:55SPEAKERand stuff like that?
20:56SPEAKER- Correct, yes, that's exactly it.
20:58SPEAKERSo they are contracted,
21:01SPEAKERbut many of them have been with us for many years.
21:04SPEAKER- Is there somebody in that decision chain
21:07SPEAKERwho is like the go or no go,
21:10SPEAKERsomebody has to make the decision finally,
21:13SPEAKERwe're not getting consensus from the community
21:15SPEAKERor the internal teams.
21:16SPEAKERAre there hierarchies for, we're the hardware side,
21:20SPEAKERwe're the software side and stuff like that?
21:24SPEAKER- Yes, there is a person who gets to say,
21:27SPEAKERyes, we're doing it or no, we're not doing it.
21:29SPEAKERAnd that is definitely TL.
21:31SPEAKERThen there's people like myself and the current community,
21:36SPEAKERmatter crowds who get to have a significant say
21:39SPEAKERin whether something is going forward
21:41SPEAKERand pitch in ideas and review stuff as it's coming in
21:46SPEAKERand see if it makes any sense to continue
21:49SPEAKERwith a particular project.
21:51SPEAKERBut this is quite fluid.
21:54SPEAKERThere have been a few instances even within the recent year
21:58SPEAKERwhere two or three trusted community developers
22:02SPEAKERbasically overruled what we wanted to do internally
22:05SPEAKERwith relationship to the hardware.
22:08SPEAKERSomething which required us to pay a significant amount
22:13SPEAKERof extra money for a feature.
22:16SPEAKERBut ultimately that feature found itself into the product.
22:18SPEAKERAnd so, yes, there is a cutoff point,
22:22SPEAKERwhich is TL saying, we cannot do this,
22:25SPEAKERit's impossible to do this.
22:27SPEAKERBut there's always a debate.
22:28SPEAKERSometimes these debate get quite heated
22:31SPEAKERand sometimes they leak into the public as well.
22:35SPEAKERAnd these are the sort of things that happen here.
22:38SPEAKER- Boot ROMs on phones and things like that.
22:40SPEAKER- Yes.
22:41SPEAKER- That's how you know you've arrived as an open project
22:43SPEAKERwhen drama is spilling out into blog posts
22:45SPEAKERas people take sides.
22:48SPEAKER- Yes.
22:49SPEAKERFor the record, Martin, Bram and I met at Fasten this year
22:52SPEAKERand we had a beer and everything's fine.
22:55SPEAKERSo to anyone listening, we're all good.
22:58SPEAKER- I was gonna say, so for people who aren't super dialed
23:01SPEAKERinto the scene on this particular...
23:04SPEAKERThis was really low key scene drama for Linux projects
23:08SPEAKERin our experience.
23:09SPEAKER- Very polite, extremely polite.
23:11SPEAKER- And the concern was about boot loaders
23:14SPEAKERand how it would apply to alternate operating systems
23:16SPEAKERon the PinePhone.
23:18SPEAKERI realize now as we're talking about the PinePhone,
23:20SPEAKERwe haven't actually talked about the kind of scope
23:22SPEAKERand scale of the product offering that Pine64 is doing yet.
23:26SPEAKER- Yeah, the range, the breadth of the product offering
23:29SPEAKERis kind of astonishing to me.
23:30SPEAKERI mean, like you said, the initial Kickstarter
23:32SPEAKERwas for a small board computer.
23:34SPEAKERYou've got products like for example,
23:36SPEAKERyour desktop power, USB power supply.
23:38SPEAKERI love the kind of...
23:40SPEAKERThere's a bit of an industrial look to it.
23:41SPEAKERYou know, it's got a screen that literally tells you
23:44SPEAKERthe voltage and amperage of all USB ports on there.
23:46SPEAKERIt looks like something that would have been on like,
23:48SPEAKERmy grandfather was a machinist
23:50SPEAKERand it was like the kind of equipment he might use, you know.
23:53SPEAKERBut also now you've shifted toward,
23:56SPEAKERyou've got a smartwatch, you've got earbuds on the way.
23:59SPEAKERMore sort of like packaged consumer oriented stuff
24:02SPEAKERthat obviously still open firmware, still hackable
24:05SPEAKERand stuff you can tinker with,
24:07SPEAKERbut more everyday sort of carry around items.
24:11SPEAKERWas that shift toward things like earbuds and smartwatches?
24:13SPEAKERWas that entirely organically driven by the community
24:16SPEAKERor was that ever in the initial roadmap
24:18SPEAKERthat like we're gonna start with more open
24:20SPEAKERand then go to more consumer?
24:22SPEAKER- No, I'll be completely honest with you here.
24:24SPEAKERNo, these weren't community suggested projects.
24:31SPEAKERThese are things we know the community will be keen on
24:35SPEAKERbecause it allows a lot of hacking,
24:38SPEAKERa lot of fun things to be done.
24:39SPEAKERI mean, the pine saw has become huge, for instance.
24:43SPEAKERThe pine time has also become huge
24:45SPEAKERand on a different scale, but also huge.
24:47SPEAKERThe earbuds, I think, so the pine buds probably,
24:50SPEAKERI think that they have a lot of potential
24:52SPEAKERand we have seen a lot of interest in them.
24:54SPEAKERBut ultimately these are business decisions
24:58SPEAKERbecause the project needs to make enough money
25:02SPEAKERto make things that do not make money.
25:04SPEAKERSo say the smartphones,
25:07SPEAKERthey for instance do not generate a profit, right?
25:10SPEAKERThey are there simply because we wanted
25:13SPEAKERto do a smartphone, right?
25:16SPEAKERSimilarly with the laptops, with the arm laptops,
25:19SPEAKERquite similarly with the tablets.
25:21SPEAKERSo with the pine tab V and the pine tab two.
25:25SPEAKERSo there needs to be things within our range
25:28SPEAKERthat do generate the funds to do the things
25:31SPEAKERthat are more fun.
25:33SPEAKERAnd definitely there's no need to hide the fact
25:37SPEAKERthat the pine saw, the pine time, the pine buds,
25:41SPEAKERas well as some of the modules are designed
25:44SPEAKERto generate that profit to do some of the fun things
25:46SPEAKERthat we, the other fun things we do, yeah.
25:49SPEAKER- Yeah, with hardware especially and especially with,
25:51SPEAKERsince you're doing RISC-V hardware now,
25:54SPEAKERthere's a chicken or egg situation
25:56SPEAKERwhere you have to build the hardware
25:57SPEAKERso that the software can exist,
25:59SPEAKERso that the hardware can sell.
26:01SPEAKERAnd I assume that's the point with the laptops
26:04SPEAKERand the tablets and the smartphones
26:06SPEAKERis to build up these ecosystems
26:08SPEAKERfor people using Linux for phones
26:13SPEAKERso that these actually do become viable platforms
26:15SPEAKERat some point in the future.
26:16SPEAKERAnd I assume you don't always want them
26:18SPEAKERto be projects that are losing money eventually, I hope.
26:22SPEAKERI assume you want them to drive revenue
26:24SPEAKERfor the company, but yeah.
26:25SPEAKER- I mean, there's definitely some products
26:27SPEAKERthat do not need to make revenue,
26:29SPEAKERsuch as the phones, right?
26:31SPEAKERWe just wanna see Linux on smartphones
26:33SPEAKERand we wanna see a future where there is an alternative
26:37SPEAKERto the current operating systems, right?
26:41SPEAKERAnd one way of doing that is making sure
26:43SPEAKERthat everybody can get their hands on one if they want one.
26:47SPEAKERFrom the moment we conceived of this idea,
26:51SPEAKERwe figured we'll pretty much sell it at costs
26:55SPEAKERjust to make sure that everybody
26:56SPEAKERwho really wants one can get one, right?
26:59SPEAKERSo they're not losing money,
27:01SPEAKERbut they're not generating revenue,
27:03SPEAKERbut something has to generate revenue.
27:04SPEAKERAnd there's definitely some products
27:06SPEAKERthat are designed to generate revenue within the lineup.
27:10SPEAKER- It's remarkable to me that you talk about
27:12SPEAKERthings like the Pine Time smartwatch
27:13SPEAKERas being the sort of popular volume movers,
27:16SPEAKERthe profit generating products,
27:18SPEAKERbecause I was ready to come in here
27:20SPEAKERand say that your prices are just astonishingly low.
27:23SPEAKERI mean, the Pine Time currently on your site
27:26SPEAKERis selling for 26.99 and I looked at that
27:28SPEAKERand I was just like, there has to be a zero missing here.
27:31SPEAKERLike, how is this possible?
27:32SPEAKERI mean, even though you say
27:33SPEAKERthat these are successful revenue drivers,
27:35SPEAKERI mean, I don't know how much you wanna get
27:38SPEAKERinto the business model, but I mean,
27:39SPEAKERthese are, I assume, like relatively low profit margin.
27:42SPEAKERI mean, it seems remarkable what you're getting,
27:46SPEAKERlooking at what else is out there
27:47SPEAKERfrom more closed companies in the same space for this price.
27:51SPEAKER- Sure, but even if, let's say, they each generate,
27:55SPEAKERso even if the Pine Sol and the Pine Time
27:56SPEAKERjust generate a dollar or a dollar and a half
28:00SPEAKERin very large quantities,
28:02SPEAKERwhich these have had significant uptake,
28:05SPEAKERyou know, this is perfectly fine.
28:07SPEAKERAnd then compute modules,
28:10SPEAKERwhile Raspberry Pi compute module has been, you know,
28:15SPEAKERthe standard very much in the West,
28:18SPEAKERthe So Pine compute module has been taken up
28:21SPEAKERin significant parts of Asia, you know, for a long time now,
28:26SPEAKERused in everything from rail signage
28:29SPEAKERto slot machines and what have you.
28:33SPEAKERAnd those sort of things make phones and tablets
28:39SPEAKERwith RISC-V, RISC-V processors possible, yeah.
28:43SPEAKER- So what's the common thread for all this?
28:44SPEAKERIs it, hey, we can get electronics manufactured?
28:48SPEAKERLike we have, is that the sauce of the company?
28:50SPEAKEROr is it, we're really good at SOCs?
28:53SPEAKEROr, you know, what connects the Pine Sol and the phone?
28:57SPEAKEROr is it just, hey, this is the thing
28:58SPEAKERwe want to exist in the world.
28:59SPEAKERWhat connects the Pine Sol and the phone
29:01SPEAKERand the tablet and the laptop
29:02SPEAKERand the SOC and the power station?
29:07SPEAKER- Right, so there's definitely a maker side
29:10SPEAKERto this equation.
29:11SPEAKERYou know, even things such as the phone
29:13SPEAKERcan be dismantled.
29:15SPEAKERWe actually, you know, if you break it,
29:17SPEAKERwe encourage you to fix it yourself.
29:19SPEAKERThere's spare parts on the website and stuff like that.
29:22SPEAKER- I love that, by the way.
29:23SPEAKERThat's my favorite thing.
29:25SPEAKER- It's a question of, you know,
29:26SPEAKERundoing 12 screws or whatever,
29:27SPEAKERand you'll be fine.
29:29SPEAKERYou'll have it, you know,
29:30SPEAKERI'm not particularly technically savvy,
29:32SPEAKERbut I've taken apart dozens of them and fixed many of them.
29:36SPEAKERThey're really quite trivial to fix if you drop it.
29:40SPEAKERYou know, it's a question of 20 minutes for me
29:43SPEAKERto fix one, so no biggie.
29:45SPEAKERBut there is also a lead thread,
29:47SPEAKERwhich goes from when we create a single board computer,
29:51SPEAKERa single board computer is obviously a standalone device,
29:55SPEAKERbut it is also a basis,
29:57SPEAKERa platform upon which we sometimes, not always,
30:00SPEAKERbut usually decide to build more products, right?
30:04SPEAKERSo there are particular SOCs,
30:06SPEAKERwhich we see particularly high potential in, right?
30:09SPEAKERUsually from SOC vendors who are more friendly
30:13SPEAKERor more keen to cooperate with the open source community.
30:17SPEAKERThere's definitely,
30:18SPEAKERsome of the products are created
30:20SPEAKERjust because we wanna see them exist.
30:23SPEAKERThere are some products which exist
30:25SPEAKERbecause there is a need for them to exist
30:28SPEAKERin the business world.
30:29SPEAKERSo this would be the compute modules,
30:32SPEAKERlike Soppines were massively huge.
30:35SPEAKERThere are products which exist
30:37SPEAKERsimply because they didn't exist before,
30:39SPEAKERand we didn't know if there was a market for them or not,
30:42SPEAKERsuch as a open smartwatch.
30:44SPEAKERAnd it turns out that it is,
30:46SPEAKERI mean, I'll be honest, it's a phenomenal project, right?
30:50SPEAKERWhen we were talking first about the PineSoul,
30:53SPEAKERnobody would understand why,
30:55SPEAKERwhy would anyone want to have a soldering iron
30:59SPEAKERthat connects via Bluetooth to your desktop
31:03SPEAKERto display how hot the tip is?
31:06SPEAKERBut it turns out that a lot of people want that.
31:09SPEAKERSo you never know.
31:11SPEAKER- That specifically is a feature
31:12SPEAKERthat my much more expensive soldering station
31:15SPEAKERfrom a company that's been making soldering irons
31:16SPEAKERfor a hundred years does not offer
31:19SPEAKERat anything other than ridiculous professional level prices.
31:23SPEAKERSo when I saw,
31:25SPEAKERit was literally the fastest time
31:26SPEAKERwhen I saw the PineSoul that I've ever gone from,
31:29SPEAKERoh God, another thing's USB connected
31:31SPEAKERor another thing's Bluetooth connected.
31:32SPEAKERWhy do we need this?
31:33SPEAKERTo, oh wow, I've hit the order button.
31:36SPEAKERIt's gonna be here in three days.
31:37SPEAKERThat sounds fantastic.
31:38SPEAKERSo it is a place where having smart control
31:41SPEAKERover your temperature actually makes a difference
31:43SPEAKERin how well you can solder.
31:44SPEAKERAlso the size of the thing
31:46SPEAKERand the fact that I can run it off a USB power pack.
31:48SPEAKERSo I have a portable soldering iron
31:50SPEAKERthat doesn't use butane and works anywhere.
31:53SPEAKERAnd I won't torch my boards when I'm doing stuff with it.
31:55SPEAKERIt is a transformative device for me.
31:58SPEAKERSo I appreciate you all a lot.
32:00SPEAKERI guess what I'm saying is thank you
32:01SPEAKERfor making the internet of shit soldering iron.
32:04SPEAKER- Yeah, but the PineSoul isn't the first soldering iron
32:09SPEAKERto run the open operating system
32:11SPEAKERor the open firmware for it.
32:13SPEAKERThere have been others,
32:15SPEAKERexcept we reached out to Ben Rallum directly.
32:19SPEAKERWe said, hey, we wanna make one of those things.
32:22SPEAKERThey seem like, they seem fun.
32:25SPEAKERWould you like to tell us what you wanna see
32:27SPEAKERin one of these?
32:28SPEAKERAnd he came aboard and he told us exactly
32:30SPEAKERwhat he wanted to see in such a soldering iron.
32:33SPEAKERAnd we said, all right, well, we'll make it happen.
32:36SPEAKERAnd here we are.
32:36SPEAKERAnd this is why it's ultimately a better soldering iron
32:40SPEAKERthan the alternatives which were available at the time.
32:42SPEAKERIt's because he came in and he said, look,
32:44SPEAKERthis is what people are looking in these little things.
32:48SPEAKERAnd he worked, he really guided us through this
32:52SPEAKERand made a very good product.
32:55SPEAKERAnd then when we wanted to do the V2,
32:57SPEAKERwe really spoke to him for months about it
33:00SPEAKERnot to make it into a gimmick,
33:03SPEAKERbut make it into something that
33:05SPEAKERdoes what it already does better,
33:07SPEAKERbecause ultimately for those who care about two seconds
33:12SPEAKERor three seconds faster heat up time,
33:15SPEAKERthe V2 does heat up ridiculously fast
33:18SPEAKEReven compared to the V1.
33:20SPEAKERBut then we thought, what else can we do
33:23SPEAKERthat would open up the possibilities
33:25SPEAKERwith the soldering iron?
33:27SPEAKERBluetooth was one of the options.
33:30SPEAKER- I mean, I almost feel like you're doing
33:31SPEAKERa public service here because like with the Pine Soul,
33:33SPEAKERjust like with the smartwatch,
33:35SPEAKERthe thing is selling for $26 right now.
33:37SPEAKERAnd when Will told me, I had never heard of it before
33:39SPEAKERuntil Will got one and described it to me.
33:41SPEAKERAnd I was like, well, that easily
33:42SPEAKERis gonna be two or $300 minimum.
33:44SPEAKERAnd I looked at it, the site had just fell out of my chair.
33:47SPEAKERYou know what I mean?
33:48SPEAKERIt's like I solder something maybe once a year,
33:50SPEAKERbut at that price range and with this level of features
33:53SPEAKERand openness, like why wouldn't I get one, right?
33:56SPEAKERLike it's just, I feel like it's in a category
33:59SPEAKERwhere just about anybody who's even like soldering curious
34:01SPEAKERcould grab one at fairly low risk and give it a shot, right?
34:05SPEAKER- Yeah.
34:06SPEAKERAnd I mean, if you like Brisk 5 microcontrollers,
34:09SPEAKERit's running on a Brisk 5 microcontroller.
34:12SPEAKERAnd we even made a breakup board for it,
34:14SPEAKERwhich you can pick up if you wanna use it
34:18SPEAKERjust to learn about Brisk 5 as a platform.
34:21SPEAKER- I think it's the first Brisk 5 processor
34:23SPEAKERI had in the house.
34:24SPEAKERI'm reasonably sure of that.
34:25SPEAKER- Oh yeah, all right, yeah.
34:26SPEAKER- Is it fair to say the Pine Soul
34:27SPEAKERis sort of the breakout product
34:29SPEAKERin terms of market penetration?
34:30SPEAKERAnd I know like it rises up
34:33SPEAKERin the Amazon search results a lot now.
34:34SPEAKERIs it kind of the most visible?
34:37SPEAKER- Right, in that sense, yes, yes.
34:39SPEAKERBecause obviously there's relatively few people in the world
34:43SPEAKERwho want a Linux smartphone, right?
34:46SPEAKEROr in general, there's a few people
34:48SPEAKERwho want the Linux laptop
34:50SPEAKERand especially one which runs ARM,
34:51SPEAKERthere's very few such people still.
34:53SPEAKERI mean, statistics don't lie.
34:55SPEAKERSo yes, in terms of share volume, yes, absolutely.
35:01SPEAKERThis is probably the product
35:03SPEAKERthat has seen the most adoption
35:07SPEAKERthroughout all sorts of circles, makers,
35:11SPEAKERbut I've seen them everywhere, literally.
35:13SPEAKERBut the pine time,
35:14SPEAKERthere's a lot of people in conventions
35:16SPEAKERwho you're gonna see wearing a pine time
35:18SPEAKERand following the pandemic,
35:22SPEAKERthis was the first FOSTA when I went
35:23SPEAKERand just saw how many pine phones there are
35:26SPEAKERin the community, it's completely nuts.
35:28SPEAKER- One of the cues that I had
35:29SPEAKERthat the pine sole has achieved pretty broad penetration
35:32SPEAKERis that it's the one product,
35:34SPEAKERor at least I assume at least the first one
35:36SPEAKERthat has had a cloning problem
35:38SPEAKERthat there are counterfeit pine soles out there now.
35:40SPEAKERI'm sure from a design and logistics standpoint,
35:43SPEAKERit was annoying to deal with that problem.
35:44SPEAKERBut is it also a little flattering
35:47SPEAKERthat you've made something popular
35:48SPEAKERand robust enough that people want to try to copy it?
35:51SPEAKER- Of course, of course it is flattering.
35:53SPEAKERWe estimate that anywhere between 10 to 20 times more,
35:58SPEAKERthat there have been 10 to 20 times more copies sold
36:02SPEAKERthan the original pine sole V1.
36:05SPEAKERWe've put in a security feature into the V2,
36:10SPEAKERwhich allows you to check
36:13SPEAKERwhether you have a genuine device or not,
36:17SPEAKERbut that's just for you.
36:19SPEAKERI mean, that's just whether you want to support us
36:22SPEAKERand the project.
36:24SPEAKERBut I'm sure they gotta be able to replicate it otherwise,
36:27SPEAKERjust fine as well in a month's time or two months time.
36:31SPEAKER- So I was gonna say how,
36:34SPEAKERyou say you have these leader products
36:36SPEAKERthat are generating revenue
36:37SPEAKERthat support the rest of the pine64 business.
36:41SPEAKERAnd I'm curious, you look at a margin
36:45SPEAKERthat you can sell the device for and you're like,
36:46SPEAKERokay, we're gonna put this percentage back.
36:49SPEAKERIs there funding from other sources
36:50SPEAKERthat aren't selling hardware
36:51SPEAKERor is everything funded off of selling hardware
36:53SPEAKERat this point?
36:54SPEAKER- Everything, we do not have as,
36:56SPEAKERso there are internally a few principles.
36:59SPEAKEROne is that we do not have any,
37:02SPEAKERthat the only stakeholders are community members
37:07SPEAKERand developers, so we do not have anyone else exerting
37:11SPEAKERany type of pressure on us.
37:14SPEAKERThis is kind of, because we do wanna do weird things, right?
37:19SPEAKERIf I were to go, the pine time was my idea, right?
37:23SPEAKERWere I to go and pitch an open smartwatch
37:27SPEAKERin a traditional setting, I would have been turned down.
37:30SPEAKERIt just simply did not make sense at the time, right?
37:34SPEAKERSo no, we do not have other means of revenue.
37:37SPEAKERI mean, it is all hardware.
37:39SPEAKERSo there's no other source of income.
37:42SPEAKER- I'm curious how open your hardware designs are.
37:44SPEAKERI mean, obviously that is a goal of the company,
37:46SPEAKERbut I assume there are just certain legal restrictions
37:49SPEAKERin terms of the vendors you work with.
37:50SPEAKERAnd I don't know about schematics and documentation.
37:53SPEAKERAre there limits to how much you can expose to the developers
37:57SPEAKERin terms of IP and proprietary technology
38:00SPEAKERthat like the vendors that you work with
38:02SPEAKERjust won't allow you to make open?
38:05SPEAKER- This will vary from one product to the other,
38:07SPEAKERbut in general, because we work with developers so closely,
38:11SPEAKERwhat happens is that we will sometimes,
38:15SPEAKERwe will usually settle only for a component
38:18SPEAKERif we can get the schematic for it, right?
38:23SPEAKERSo we will never buy something where we know
38:26SPEAKERthat we have no contact with the vendor.
38:28SPEAKERWe have no information about it
38:29SPEAKERand no one is interested in working on it, right?
38:32SPEAKERSo for instance, with the Python Pro,
38:35SPEAKERwe had a really lovely camera for the rear facing camera,
38:39SPEAKERwhich we could have gotten,
38:42SPEAKERwe could have a steady supply of it,
38:44SPEAKERbut there was no real work on it being done in Linux.
38:49SPEAKERNobody really had any interest working on it.
38:53SPEAKERWe had no documentation for it.
38:54SPEAKERSo we had to basically go and settle on something else,
38:57SPEAKERsomething which has all of this support
38:59SPEAKERand interest and work.
39:01SPEAKERSo in general, with regard to openness,
39:04SPEAKERwe make sure to get as much data as we can from the vendor
39:09SPEAKERwhere SDKs and stuff like that are pertinent.
39:12SPEAKERWe always get it from the vendor
39:13SPEAKERand make sure that this is delivered to developers.
39:17SPEAKERWhere there hasn't been any efforts made,
39:20SPEAKERso like LCD panels bring up of these LCD panels in Linux,
39:24SPEAKERyou know, it's from the ground up.
39:26SPEAKERWe have company representatives who basically say,
39:30SPEAKERyeah, we'll come in and we'll talk to the devs
39:32SPEAKERand we'll let the devs know, you know,
39:34SPEAKERyou're going in the right direction, that sort of thing.
39:37SPEAKERThen we have, with respect to the main SOC,
39:40SPEAKERwe have very good contact with Rockchip
39:43SPEAKERand now with other vendors as well,
39:46SPEAKERwho have, you know, they have been good
39:49SPEAKERwhen it comes to the open community,
39:51SPEAKERopen source community.
39:52SPEAKERAnd then everything that is ours that we do,
39:55SPEAKERwe document and we make it available to the community.
39:58SPEAKERWe stop at basically providing Gerber files,
40:02SPEAKERwhich is the kind of the stop point.
40:05SPEAKERAnd, you know, the reason for it is not so much
40:10SPEAKERbecause we don't want you making your own phone.
40:14SPEAKERIt's that we know that where we manufacture and make things,
40:18SPEAKERwe could see, you know, if the Pine Soul can be cloned,
40:22SPEAKERso can the Pine Phone with the right files and much faster.
40:26SPEAKER- Does doing development in public in the open
40:28SPEAKERmake it harder to kill stuff as it's going
40:31SPEAKERwhen you see it's not going to work out?
40:33SPEAKERDo you get to the point that you've announced something
40:36SPEAKERand you're like, oh, we shouldn't be making this
40:38SPEAKERand you've had to kill stuff as you're in progress?
40:41SPEAKER- Yes, absolutely.
40:42SPEAKERThe IP cam, which we call the cube,
40:45SPEAKEReverybody on the team thought it's a great idea.
40:49SPEAKERTurns out nobody's interested in it.
40:53SPEAKERThe SOC was great.
40:54SPEAKERThe actual camera module was good.
40:56SPEAKERThe design I thought was pretty solid.
40:58SPEAKERYou could run any type of, you know, Linux on it
41:02SPEAKERand just stream from it or there's,
41:04SPEAKERI'm blanking on it right now,
41:05SPEAKERbut there is one dedicated Linux distribution
41:09SPEAKERor basically it's a, what is it called?
41:11SPEAKERMotionEye, is that what it's called?
41:13SPEAKERWhich is made for basically like security cameras
41:17SPEAKERand stuff that could run on it.
41:18SPEAKERAnd it seemed like a great idea.
41:19SPEAKERYou have a, you know, an open Nanny cam or security cam.
41:24SPEAKERIt seemed like a great idea,
41:25SPEAKERbut ultimately the interest was not there.
41:27SPEAKERSo we did kill it off.
41:30SPEAKERThere's very few projects that we killed off
41:33SPEAKERbecause there was no interest, however.
41:34SPEAKERThere were a few which we had to kill off,
41:37SPEAKERespecially during the pandemic,
41:38SPEAKERbecause there was no means to manufacture them.
41:41SPEAKERBut otherwise, you know,
41:43SPEAKERI think that the cube is probably the only example
41:46SPEAKERthat comes into my head of something which we killed off
41:49SPEAKERbecause there was no interest in it.
41:51SPEAKER- Okay, so it is listed as out of stock on your site.
41:53SPEAKERSo it is literally out of production, just done?
41:56SPEAKER- It is out of production, yeah.
41:57SPEAKER- Okay.
41:58SPEAKER- I would say that we haven't really lost interest
42:00SPEAKERin the concept and definitely want to explore it more,
42:04SPEAKERbut perhaps in a more modular fashion.
42:07SPEAKERSo we made this tiny little microcontroller SBC
42:13SPEAKERcalled the AUX 64, which is Linux capable.
42:17SPEAKERAnd we are developing sort of a camera module
42:20SPEAKERwhich will attach to it.
42:22SPEAKERSo you would be able to sort of transform it
42:25SPEAKERinto a sort of a cube spiritual successor
42:28SPEAKERfor those few who are interested in the device.
42:31SPEAKER- I wanted to dig into just a little bit
42:33SPEAKERwhat it's like using the Pine phone,
42:34SPEAKERbecause, you know, of all your products,
42:36SPEAKERobviously a phone is the most universal, you know,
42:38SPEAKERnot everybody uses a laptop or a smartwatch,
42:40SPEAKERbut everybody's got a phone.
42:41SPEAKERSo I'm just kind of, I'm curious,
42:43SPEAKERespecially for people who aren't Linux developers
42:45SPEAKERwho are less tinkering inclined,
42:47SPEAKERwhat the out of the box experience is like
42:49SPEAKERwith Linux on a phone.
42:50SPEAKERYou've standardized around Manjaro at this point
42:53SPEAKERon your phones, although I assume the other open phone OSs
42:56SPEAKERare still an option to install.
42:58SPEAKER- Absolutely, yeah.
42:59SPEAKER- But I'm just kind of curious,
43:00SPEAKERlike when you booted up for the first time,
43:01SPEAKERin terms of, I guess, just onboarding, you know, App Store,
43:05SPEAKERlike what are the sort of common phone analogs like on there
43:09SPEAKERin terms of usability compared to the closed, bigger,
43:12SPEAKERyou know, Apples and Googles of the world?
43:14SPEAKER- I'll tell you this.
43:15SPEAKERIt depends on how you look at it.
43:17SPEAKERSo it is the most successful Linux on mobile effort thus far.
43:23SPEAKERAnd the development over the past two years
43:26SPEAKERhas just gone, you know, a very long way, right?
43:31SPEAKERLike we are at a point where all key features
43:35SPEAKERof the original PinePhone, as well as the PinePhone Pro,
43:38SPEAKERalthough to a slightly lesser degree,
43:40SPEAKERare functional on the device.
43:42SPEAKERAnd from a purely hardware perspective,
43:45SPEAKERthese are the most, some of the most open devices period.
43:49SPEAKERLike even down to the modem,
43:51SPEAKERyou can flash the modem with, where permissible,
43:55SPEAKERyou can flash the modem on your own with open firmware.
43:59SPEAKERHow is the experience compared to say Android or iOS?
44:04SPEAKERI think that this is nowhere close
44:08SPEAKERto something you would want to give somebody
44:10SPEAKERwho's highly dependent on either of these platforms
44:13SPEAKERand has never had any contact with Linux.
44:17SPEAKERThose people who think that we should be targeting
44:20SPEAKERthe general population and general public,
44:23SPEAKERI do not agree with this point of view.
44:27SPEAKERDepending on which numbers you believe,
44:29SPEAKERthere's anywhere between 20 to 60 million
44:33SPEAKERactive Linux users in the world.
44:36SPEAKERAnd there are nowhere close
44:38SPEAKERto 20 to 60 million PineFones out there.
44:44SPEAKERAt best, there's a few hundred thousand PineFones out there.
44:48SPEAKERAnd I think that this is a very big market
44:51SPEAKERin and of its own.
44:53SPEAKERSo once we convince potentially those people
44:56SPEAKERwho already use Linux on their desktop computers
44:59SPEAKERto have a phone with Linux,
45:01SPEAKERwe can go after people who rely on Android
45:05SPEAKERor iOS in their daily life.
45:07SPEAKERHow does it compare?
45:08SPEAKERIt doesn't really compare particularly well is the answer.
45:12SPEAKERI mean, you can browse, you can set up an email client,
45:14SPEAKERyou could make and receive calls,
45:17SPEAKERyou can take photographs, you can do some chats
45:22SPEAKERwhich have ARM clients for Linux.
45:26SPEAKERBut I mean, it will not do your banking app
45:28SPEAKERor your travel card or whatever it is that people do
45:34SPEAKERon a daily basis with their Android or iOS phones.
45:38SPEAKERYou can install Spotify on it for those who care.
45:41SPEAKERSo, but I mean, it is a different experience altogether.
45:45SPEAKERIt does feel like a early proof of concept,
45:50SPEAKERregardless of which operating system you settle on.
45:53SPEAKERAnd some of these operating systems are much more polished.
45:56SPEAKERSome of these operating systems are mobile operating systems
46:02SPEAKERwhich happened to be Linux.
46:05SPEAKERAnd some of these operating systems are Linux
46:08SPEAKERwhich happened to run on mobile, right?
46:10SPEAKERSo there are fractions in communities
46:13SPEAKERwithin the broader community as well
46:16SPEAKERwho require different things
46:18SPEAKERor want to see different things on the PinePhone,
46:21SPEAKERon the PinePhone Pro.
46:22SPEAKER- I've been tempted to pick one up honestly,
46:24SPEAKERjust to noodle with and see what,
46:25SPEAKERjust to get the experience, see where it's at.
46:28SPEAKERBecause the last time I looked at a Linux phone
46:31SPEAKERwas probably three or four years ago
46:33SPEAKERand they were early prototypes of things
46:36SPEAKERthat people weren't maybe even showing publicly.
46:39SPEAKERAnd it was rough to unusable at that point.
46:42SPEAKERSo, you know, there's a curve that we've seen
46:45SPEAKERwith a lot of open source projects where things,
46:47SPEAKERwhere development starts slow
46:48SPEAKERand then there reaches a point where the,
46:50SPEAKERit's the typical capitalist hockey puck graph, right?
46:53SPEAKERWhere all of a sudden the features are coming,
46:55SPEAKERthe number of developers increases
46:57SPEAKERand the features go up and up.
46:58SPEAKERLike, do you feel like you're reaching,
47:00SPEAKERare you working toward that point
47:01SPEAKERor do you see that point in the future for the PinePhone?
47:04SPEAKEROr is that, you think further off
47:06SPEAKERthan we should be thinking about right now?
47:08SPEAKER- That is a super difficult question.
47:12SPEAKERI think that our core community wants different things
47:17SPEAKERfrom the phone than say my wife or my mom, right?
47:23SPEAKERAnd that is a bit of a problem
47:26SPEAKERbecause the convenience that an Android phone,
47:29SPEAKERwhich is synced up to Google Cloud
47:31SPEAKERand all that stuff gives you, it is by design,
47:36SPEAKERis not replicable in the PinePhone.
47:39SPEAKERBut by the sort of, by the design, by the philosophy of it.
47:44SPEAKERSo I don't know how to answer this one.
47:46SPEAKERI mean, what I'll say is this,
47:49SPEAKERI hope that the list iteration of the PinePhone
47:52SPEAKERor the next iteration or the next after that,
47:54SPEAKERor somebody else, some other company or person
47:57SPEAKERwho has now a PinePhone gets inspired by it
47:59SPEAKERand creates something that will make everyone
48:03SPEAKERin the Linux community and the open source community say,
48:06SPEAKERI want one of these things.
48:08SPEAKERLike I genuinely want one.
48:10SPEAKERAnd that it will meet their needs and requirements for it.
48:14SPEAKERSo whether we make it or somebody else make it,
48:16SPEAKERto me personally, it doesn't really matter
48:18SPEAKERas long as it gets made, right?
48:20SPEAKERAnd everybody wants to really work on it.
48:23SPEAKER- And there's also something to be said for just,
48:25SPEAKERespecially in a world where people are becoming more,
48:28SPEAKERCorey Doctor has been yelling about privacy
48:30SPEAKERfor 25 years at this point.
48:31SPEAKERBut I think there's more momentum from normal users,
48:35SPEAKEReven non-Linux users about the ownership of their own data
48:39SPEAKERand living outside of those closed ecosystems.
48:43SPEAKERSo, I mean, maybe there will be momentum there
48:45SPEAKERin the future and people are willing to make a few sacrifices
48:48SPEAKERto get something that's off of the Google grid
48:50SPEAKERor the Apple, off of Apple's ecosystem.
48:53SPEAKERSo fingers crossed, I guess.
48:56SPEAKERDo you all do user research?
48:58SPEAKERLike did you do focused user research
49:00SPEAKERor is it more informal?
49:02SPEAKERLike how do you decide which direction to go with products?
49:07SPEAKERHow do you decide which products to support?
49:08SPEAKERHow do you know that a product you're building
49:10SPEAKERfor the market you're personally familiar with
49:13SPEAKERis going to work in Southeast Asia or North America
49:16SPEAKERor Africa or wherever else you care to sell stuff?
49:20SPEAKER- Well, we don't because we do not really collect
49:23SPEAKERany information or data.
49:25SPEAKERI mean, we ran a poll about a year ago asking people,
49:30SPEAKERhow do you find your phone?
49:32SPEAKERLike what do you run on it?
49:35SPEAKERHow do you use it as your daily driver?
49:37SPEAKERIs it your spare phone or are you disappointed with it
49:43SPEAKERand is it in your drawer
49:45SPEAKERand you haven't picked it up for a year?
49:46SPEAKERI mean, we ask all sorts of questions
49:49SPEAKERand this is a poll from at least a year ago.
49:51SPEAKERI can't remember when I put it out.
49:53SPEAKERAnd I think, I don't know, maybe like four or 5,000 people
49:57SPEAKERanswered or something like that.
49:59SPEAKERObviously the number of existing users
50:01SPEAKERis much, much greater.
50:03SPEAKERSo a lot of this we get via a sort of a,
50:07SPEAKERalmost like an osmosis by just being a part of the community
50:10SPEAKERand talking to people on a daily basis,
50:13SPEAKERjust like regularly in the chat and just saying,
50:16SPEAKERseeing what it is that people talk about,
50:18SPEAKERwhat it is that they're excited about.
50:20SPEAKERWhat is it that they wanna see?
50:22SPEAKERWhat is it that they're disappointed with?
50:24SPEAKERI mean, ultimately we don't need to run these things
50:26SPEAKERbecause we're very much a part of the community.
50:28SPEAKERLike I check the chat every single day
50:31SPEAKERand everybody who wants to chat with me,
50:33SPEAKERthey can chat with me.
50:35SPEAKERBut we don't have any focus groups and stuff like that.
50:38SPEAKER- I'm sure you can only say so much
50:39SPEAKERabout perspective, product ideas,
50:41SPEAKERthings that may or may not happen,
50:42SPEAKERbut are there any sort of pie in the sky goals
50:46SPEAKERor ideas that the team has had for product categories
50:50SPEAKERor spaces you'd like to get into that you either haven't yet
50:53SPEAKERor like would be very difficult to do?
50:55SPEAKER- Yeah, there are a few.
50:57SPEAKERSo we definitely are looking at the next pine time
51:05SPEAKERand we're working extremely closely
51:07SPEAKERwith the development community
51:09SPEAKERaround that project infinity time that runs on the pine time
51:15SPEAKERand they definitely have some awesome ideas.
51:18SPEAKERAnd this is just to be clear to anyone listening,
51:21SPEAKERthis is quite far out for us.
51:23SPEAKERIt's still months away from prototyping,
51:28SPEAKERbut we're ping pong ideas.
51:29SPEAKERAnd in general, we are super interested in RISC-V
51:32SPEAKERas an architecture and where that can take us
51:37SPEAKERin the next years.
51:38SPEAKERAnd I've spoken about this pretty openly
51:42SPEAKERthat we definitely,
51:45SPEAKERmany of the devices that you see us do,
51:49SPEAKERwhich we have already made
51:50SPEAKERand which we have spoken about being interested in making,
51:53SPEAKERwhich are arm-based,
51:55SPEAKERwe definitely will be making some of them
51:58SPEAKERwith RISC-V processors in the future as well.
52:01SPEAKERSo this is basically no secret.
52:03SPEAKERSo it's just a question of which makes sense.
52:08SPEAKERA RISC-V watch is a really fun thing, I think,
52:12SPEAKERand something that I would be very keen on seeing happen
52:15SPEAKERin the next 18 months or so.
52:18SPEAKERBut, you know, a RISC-V laptop sounds equally fun.
52:24SPEAKERI mean, but there are many, many different options here.
52:28SPEAKER- RISC-V is kind of the last big topic
52:30SPEAKERI wanted to ask you about.
52:31SPEAKERI'm curious if you can speak from a kind of business
52:33SPEAKERand contractual standpoint
52:35SPEAKERabout what it's like working with it.
52:36SPEAKERI mean, for people who don't know,
52:37SPEAKERRISC-V, it's an open source architecture,
52:41SPEAKERkind of comparable to ARM in the mobile space
52:43SPEAKERin terms of capabilities,
52:44SPEAKERbut open source and royalty-free, license-free,
52:47SPEAKERis that accurate?
52:49SPEAKERIs that an accurate way to put it?
52:50SPEAKER- Yes, so this is accurate for the cores.
52:53SPEAKER- Okay.
52:54SPEAKER- So RISC-V has a lot of benefits to it
53:01SPEAKERand it's super exciting for developers
53:05SPEAKERbecause they, you know, the instruction set,
53:09SPEAKERthe ISA for RISC-V is basically available on GitHub
53:12SPEAKERand they can contribute to it.
53:14SPEAKERAnd you have a chance to help evolve the platform
53:17SPEAKERon a very, very raw metal level.
53:21SPEAKERSo that's super interesting.
53:22SPEAKERFrom a manufacturer's perspective,
53:26SPEAKERRISC-V has the benefit, well, has multiple benefits.
53:31SPEAKEROne is that with time due to many more producers
53:38SPEAKERcreating RISC-V SOCs, there's gonna be more competition.
53:41SPEAKERAnd because RISC-V does not depend on the license,
53:45SPEAKERwhich you have to pay per design,
53:48SPEAKERthese will provide more power at a lower cost to end users.
53:55SPEAKERNow, there's a lot of people,
53:56SPEAKERand I'm guilty of this as well,
53:58SPEAKERof saying that, you know, oh, RISC-V is so early
54:00SPEAKERand it's gonna be, you know,
54:02SPEAKERit's coming up slowly and stuff.
54:04SPEAKERBut if you compare how fast RISC-V is coming up
54:08SPEAKERor Linux is coming up on RISC-V
54:10SPEAKERcompared to early days of ARM,
54:12SPEAKERI mean, this is day and night.
54:15SPEAKERI mean, we can already run Linux in a very hacky
54:19SPEAKERand poor and unpleasant way on RISC-V today
54:23SPEAKERwith basically people have been so excited about it
54:26SPEAKERthat even before there were broadly available
54:29SPEAKERsingle-board computers and development platforms
54:31SPEAKERwith RISC-V, we already had Linux on.
54:34SPEAKERI think that what we saw with Raspberry Pi and ARM
54:37SPEAKERand Linux happen in, what was it, 2012?
54:43SPEAKER- 2012, yeah. - Yeah.
54:45SPEAKERWe're gonna see RISC-V really explode
54:49SPEAKERin the next five years.
54:51SPEAKERAnd I think Linux is gonna be
54:54SPEAKERan extremely well-supported operating system
54:57SPEAKERon the platform.
54:58SPEAKERAnd I don't necessarily wanna get into the politics
55:02SPEAKERof things, but if you
55:06SPEAKERaccount for what Chinese companies
55:09SPEAKERcan and cannot manufacture at this point in time,
55:14SPEAKERI think we're gonna see a lot of very powerful
55:16SPEAKERRISC-V chips coming out of China
55:18SPEAKERat very reasonable prices within 24 months,
55:22SPEAKERgiving ARM architecture a real run for its money.
55:27SPEAKER- I'm a pretty active Debian user.
55:28SPEAKERAnd from what I've looked at,
55:29SPEAKERlike the number of Debian packages being built for RISC-V
55:33SPEAKERis like over 90%, I believe, at this point.
55:34SPEAKERI mean, the penetration, the adoption
55:36SPEAKERhas been kind of alarming to see
55:40SPEAKERhow rapidly it's played out.
55:41SPEAKERDo you have a sense from a,
55:43SPEAKERI mean, like you said, obviously ARM is much more mature.
55:46SPEAKERIt's been around longer.
55:46SPEAKERThe SOCs are more robust and capable,
55:49SPEAKERbut do you have a sense of how fast RISC-V SOCs,
55:52SPEAKERat least the ones you're using,
55:53SPEAKERare approaching those capabilities
55:55SPEAKERin terms of raw compute and GPU and stuff like that?
55:58SPEAKERIs it getting competitive yet?
56:01SPEAKER- No, but it will get there very, very fast.
56:04SPEAKERAnd I mean, fast as in by the end of this year.
56:07SPEAKERBut now I also do not necessarily wanna get too technical
56:10SPEAKERbecause I would be speaking out of term
56:12SPEAKERbecause I am not the right person to speak about it.
56:15SPEAKERBut there is a misconception within the community
56:19SPEAKERabout RISC-V as well.
56:20SPEAKERI mean, RISC-V shares many of the hurdles
56:23SPEAKERthat we had with ARM and still have with ARM.
56:27SPEAKERJust because the cores are open
56:29SPEAKERdoesn't mean that everything around these cores is open.
56:32SPEAKERAnd it's not.
56:34SPEAKER- Right, the SOC manufacturers can still check a GPU
56:37SPEAKERon the SOC that you have no access to internals on, right?
56:41SPEAKER- Yeah, I think that's like on Raspberry Pis and so forth,
56:43SPEAKERlike Broadcom will put something in the SOC
56:45SPEAKERthat is completely closed
56:47SPEAKERand undocumented, right, and proprietary.
56:49SPEAKER- And then you have to rely on the goodwill of said GPU.
56:56SPEAKERI mean, you mentioned GPU,
56:57SPEAKERbut there could be any other things that go into these SOCs,
57:00SPEAKERmemory controllers, what have you.
57:02SPEAKERThen you have to rely on the goodwill of these companies
57:04SPEAKERthat they wanna cooperate with you.
57:06SPEAKERAnd to be fair, I'm not gonna mention any names,
57:09SPEAKERbut there are companies that have had
57:12SPEAKERa terrible track record,
57:14SPEAKERbut now that they found themselves on RISC-V platforms
57:19SPEAKERand they're feeling the pressure,
57:22SPEAKERthey are more or less reluctantly going ahead
57:27SPEAKERand open sourcing their drivers just by the pressure, right?
57:33SPEAKERThis is what happens.
57:34SPEAKERI mean, when we go back to ARM and look at
57:39SPEAKERwhy is the RK3399 so well supported in Linux?
57:44SPEAKERSo that's what you have in the Pinebook Pro
57:46SPEAKERand the PinePhone Pro.
57:47SPEAKERThe reason is because Google built a Chromebook
57:51SPEAKERbased off it a couple of years ago and Google came in
57:54SPEAKERand he said open source and Rockchip did
57:58SPEAKERbecause there was pressure, right?
58:00SPEAKERAnd this is a different type of pressure,
58:02SPEAKERbut now that there is RISC-V adoption
58:04SPEAKERand RISC-V adoption from end users and enthusiasts
58:08SPEAKERwho apply pressure to particular companies,
58:10SPEAKERthese companies see this,
58:12SPEAKERthey also maybe see some benefit in it in open sourcing.
58:16SPEAKERAnd now that there's a much bigger uptake
58:18SPEAKERand it's not just business who uptakes these SOCs.
58:22SPEAKERSo they're starting to open source as well.
58:25SPEAKERI mean, I don't wanna jump the gun on RISC-V,
58:30SPEAKERbut I do see a huge potential in RISC-V
58:33SPEAKERin the next five years.
58:37SPEAKER- I would love to hear, Lukasz,
58:39SPEAKERwhere can people find out more about Pine64
58:42SPEAKERand find out more about you?
58:45SPEAKER- So about Pine64, we have a site for the organization.
58:50SPEAKERSo that's pine64.org.
58:52SPEAKERThere's a blog, which I and others contribute to,
58:56SPEAKERright at writing monthly news at the end of each month.
59:01SPEAKERAnd then we're on Twitter, on Mastodon and on Telegram,
59:07SPEAKERwhere we sort of stream news and information
59:11SPEAKERon the fairly regular.
59:17SPEAKER- Thank you, Lukasz, for coming on the podcast.
59:19SPEAKERWe'd love to have you here
59:20SPEAKERand love to learn more about Pine64.
59:23SPEAKER- Yes, getting to hear...
59:25SPEAKERYeah, getting to talk to somebody who's got experience
59:27SPEAKERin this kind of like a murky, nebulous world
59:29SPEAKERof how electronics get made these days
59:31SPEAKERis always super illuminating because like, you know,
59:34SPEAKERwe're pretty awash in inexpensive electronics these days.
59:39SPEAKERAnd I think most people sort of just,
59:41SPEAKERtheir relationship is just sort of,
59:43SPEAKERI ordered online and it shows up at my house and that's it.
59:45SPEAKERSo hearing from, you know,
59:47SPEAKERthe prototype phase through manufacturing,
59:49SPEAKERand especially with the community relationship model
59:52SPEAKERthat Pine64 has, like it just,
59:53SPEAKERjust a fascinating look behind the curtain
59:56SPEAKERand how a lot of the stuff gets made.
59:58SPEAKER- I often say that open source hardware feels like,
1:00:01SPEAKERlike the kind of good early cyberpunk novels
1:00:04SPEAKERwhere it's like some guy in a back room
1:00:06SPEAKERthat has a bunch of circuses hacking stuff together.
1:00:08SPEAKER- Yes.
1:00:10SPEAKER- This is what this really feels like.
1:00:11SPEAKERThis feels like that in a not dystopian way,
1:00:14SPEAKERif that makes sense.
1:00:15SPEAKERI know cyberpunk's-
1:00:16SPEAKER- 100%.
1:00:17SPEAKER- Apparently dystopian, whatever, yada yada.
1:00:19SPEAKER- I don't know if I made this comparison in that interview.
1:00:21SPEAKERI may have, but like any product that feels like
1:00:24SPEAKERit would be the favorite brand
1:00:25SPEAKERof the Henry Rollins character from Johnny Mnemonic,
1:00:28SPEAKERlike the cyberpunk mechanic guy is probably pretty cool.
1:00:32SPEAKER- Yeah, and there's also a repairability aspect
1:00:35SPEAKERto the whole thing that I really, really like.
1:00:37SPEAKERSo please make sure you check out Pine64.
1:00:40SPEAKERAs we said in the interview,
1:00:41SPEAKERthey love to get contributors,
1:00:43SPEAKERwhether it's people writing documentation,
1:00:44SPEAKERpeople requesting stuff for new hardware.
1:00:48SPEAKERIt was a fascinating interview,
1:00:49SPEAKERand thanks again to Will Cash for coming by.
1:00:51SPEAKERAnd that will do it for this week's episode of the show.
1:00:53SPEAKERAs always, the FOSPOD is brought to you
1:00:55SPEAKERby Google Open Source.
1:00:56SPEAKERThey bring all the value of open source to Google
1:00:58SPEAKERand all the resources of Google to open source.
1:01:01SPEAKERMatt Purdy produced this episode,
1:01:02SPEAKERand Sabrina Hill edited it.
1:01:04SPEAKERThanks you all for listening.
1:01:05SPEAKERWe'll be back soon with another episode of the FOSPOD.
1:01:08SPEAKER(upbeat music)
1:01:14SPEAKER- Brad, we've reached the point of the show
1:01:15SPEAKERwhere we thank our patrons.
1:01:16SPEAKER- We have, thank you, patrons.
1:01:18SPEAKER- Thank you, patrons.
1:01:19SPEAKERAs always, if you would like to support the TechPod,
1:01:21SPEAKERyou can go to patreon.com/techpod.
1:01:23SPEAKERAgain, it's patreon.com/techpod.
1:01:26SPEAKERAnd for five bucks a month,
1:01:27SPEAKERyou get access to the fabulous TechPod Discord,
1:01:30SPEAKERwhich literally inspired the show.
1:01:31SPEAKERPeople were talking about this Pine cell
1:01:33SPEAKERmonths and months and months ago on the TechPod Discord.
1:01:35SPEAKERAnd I was like, I am incredibly skeptical,
1:01:38SPEAKERas I said in the intro,
1:01:39SPEAKERincredibly skeptical of this smart,
1:01:42SPEAKERwhy does a soldering iron need to be smart?
1:01:44SPEAKERI have one with a dial on it
1:01:45SPEAKERthat lets me set the temperature.
1:01:46SPEAKERThat's all I need.
1:01:48SPEAKERI was wrong.
1:01:49SPEAKERI was very wrong.
1:01:51SPEAKERBut yeah, we thank you all for your support every month.
1:01:56SPEAKER- Yes, thank you.
1:01:57SPEAKERThrough Discord, incredible resource.
1:01:58SPEAKERNot only did they turn us on to the Pine cell,
1:02:01SPEAKERwhen I got mine and I couldn't get it to update on my PC
1:02:04SPEAKERfor some unknown USB compatibility reason,
1:02:07SPEAKERthen I had to go to my laptop
1:02:08SPEAKERand compile a version of the flashing utility.
1:02:11SPEAKER- Wow.
1:02:12SPEAKER- To get it to work.
1:02:12SPEAKERI wouldn't have been able to get that done either
1:02:14SPEAKERwithout the help of people on the Discord.
1:02:16SPEAKER(laughing)
1:02:18SPEAKERJust an endless resource.
1:02:20SPEAKER- As always, every week we like to thank
1:02:22SPEAKERour executive producer tier patrons,
1:02:24SPEAKERincluding Nick Johnston,
1:02:25SPEAKERPaddle Creek Games makers of Fractured Veil,
1:02:27SPEAKERAndrew Slosky, the Bunny Daemon.
1:02:29SPEAKERSorry, the Bunny Daemon.
1:02:31SPEAKER- Yeah.
1:02:32SPEAKER- Just Wedge, Joel Krauska, Twinkle, Twinkie2049,
1:02:35SPEAKERDavid Allen, and James Kamik.
1:02:37SPEAKERThank you all so, so much.
1:02:38SPEAKER- Thank you.
1:02:39SPEAKER- We will be back next week again with a regular episode.
1:02:42SPEAKER- If I have time to do some reading while I'm gone,
1:02:44SPEAKERwe might be able to start the Bluetooth trip.
1:02:45SPEAKER- Oh, oh.
1:02:47SPEAKER- I know, maybe, maybe.
1:02:49SPEAKERJust putting it out there's a possibility.
1:02:51SPEAKER- Dabbling with forces we may not understand, man.
1:02:53SPEAKER- I'm just saying there are Finnish, Danish pirates out there
1:03:00SPEAKERand we're going to find out what color their teeth are.
1:03:03SPEAKERAnd that's, we're gonna start with the Danish pirate.
1:03:05SPEAKERWe're gonna go through the entire history
1:03:06SPEAKERof the Danish piracy.
1:03:07SPEAKERAnd then eventually we'll get to Erikson and Sony
1:03:10SPEAKERmaking a super team to invent radios on the phones.
1:03:17SPEAKERSee you all next week.
1:03:18SPEAKERBye, everybody.