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1. minute (mntmn@mastodon.social)'s status on Saturday, 20-Jan-2024 21:20:07 JST minute

   in reply to

   • Graham Sutherland / Polynomial
   • Bastelwombat

   @gsuberland @bastelwombat why is framework the example here? they don't have schematics for their motherboards etc

   • Graham Sutherland / Polynomial (gsuberland@chaos.social)'s status on Saturday, 20-Jan-2024 21:20:08 JST Graham Sutherland / Polynomial

     in reply to

     • Bastelwombat

     @bastelwombat Pi is a closed source product from a for-profit company, so not sure what you're referring to there.

   • Bastelwombat (bastelwombat@chaos.social)'s status on Saturday, 20-Jan-2024 21:20:09 JST Bastelwombat

     in reply to

     • Graham Sutherland / Polynomial

     @gsuberland There are some hopeful examples. Not perfect, but at least going in the right direction: The raspberry pi stuff or @mntmn s reform laptops.

   • Graham Sutherland / Polynomial (gsuberland@chaos.social)'s status on Saturday, 20-Jan-2024 21:20:11 JST Graham Sutherland / Polynomial

     in reply to

     and again this isn't me trying to rag on these projects, 'cos I actually *love* the idea. I remember pulling out the manual for my dad's Amiga 500 and being amazed that it had a CIRCUIT DIAGRAM in the back. a full proper one, with all the part values! the vibe is immaculate, as the kids say.

     I'm just kinda rambling about this because I feel like my dreams of returning to that state are unreachable and it has made me sad.

   • Graham Sutherland / Polynomial (gsuberland@chaos.social)'s status on Saturday, 20-Jan-2024 21:20:12 JST Graham Sutherland / Polynomial

     in reply to

     organic growth means that such an endeavour takes so long that you end up burned out or swamped under technical (and possibly financial) debt.

     artificial growth (like, say, some youtuber with tens of millions of subs says they're investing in your business) means the demand rockets beyond your capabilities and your supply chain is instantly backlogged for years and everything falls apart.

     and at any point on this ride you can make one misstep or get tunnel vision and WOMP WOMP you're bust.

   • Graham Sutherland / Polynomial (gsuberland@chaos.social)'s status on Saturday, 20-Jan-2024 21:20:13 JST Graham Sutherland / Polynomial

     in reply to

     I think the crux of it is that I'm sure it's possible for an organisation to exist which can build high performance open hardware laptops with excellent reliability at a moderate premium above similar spec'd closed products, with sufficiently capable production pipelines to keep on top of demand and warranty parts, but I'm no longer confident that it's possible to attain that state because you need to make so many things that don't compete first and navigate all that mess and technical debt.

   • Graham Sutherland / Polynomial (gsuberland@chaos.social)'s status on Saturday, 20-Jan-2024 21:20:14 JST Graham Sutherland / Polynomial

     in reply to

     the super-fans who will pay a fortune to use half-broken hardware and mess with warranty replacements several times just because "open laptop" fits their general ethos can only really take you so far

   • Graham Sutherland / Polynomial (gsuberland@chaos.social)'s status on Saturday, 20-Jan-2024 21:20:16 JST Graham Sutherland / Polynomial

     in reply to

     and this makes me very sad because it's such a cool concept that has the right spirit and vibe about it, but I've kinda lost faith that it can be squared with the reailities of producing good quality computing hardware with the kind of reliability and support that is warranted at a pricetag necessary to fund operation.

   • Graham Sutherland / Polynomial (gsuberland@chaos.social)'s status on Saturday, 20-Jan-2024 21:20:17 JST Graham Sutherland / Polynomial

     in reply to

     with sincere apologies to the folks who work on this stuff who follow me - I know you do really good work - I've kinda lost a lot of confidence that this "open laptop" thing is gonna be sustainable enough to push through and grow into something more mainstream. I hope I'm wrong, but... *sigh* idk. it's just starting to seem like a lot of money for less performance and less reliability and ultimately there's still reliance on the original manufacturer for repairs most of the time anyway.

   • Graham Sutherland / Polynomial (gsuberland@chaos.social)'s status on Saturday, 20-Jan-2024 21:20:19 JST Graham Sutherland / Polynomial

     in reply to

     imma be honest, seeing multiple people report failed motherboards within warranty and then the warranty replacement motherboard failing just outside warranty is not a great look

     (especially when this is accompanied by complaints about other hardware issues happening at the same time, like trackpads and displays going bad)

   • Graham Sutherland / Polynomial (gsuberland@chaos.social)'s status on Saturday, 20-Jan-2024 21:20:20 JST Graham Sutherland / Polynomial

     I swear I've seen at least a dozen people in the last month alone complain about multiple failed components and continuous hardware issues and build quality issues in framework laptops. for how much those things cost it's deeply disappointing to see.