Have I lost the plot on all of what Rasp pi is supposed to be about?

I am glad you said something. I have been itching to, so far most of the conversations regarding Raspberry Pi involves requests for hardware upgrades, more access to I/O, EMC problems, HDMI compliance, etc etc.,

I thought Raspberry Pi was meant to encourage children to start programming, to take a more active role in the future of technology, or to at least understand it and be able to reslove issues for themselves.

Perhaps people should concentrate on the original mission, now that the original hype is dying down. We dont want to see this product hijacked and turned into something that it is not.

I have decided to donate my Raspberry Pi to a local Junior school, and to donate some time to help them form a Raspberry Pi club. Perhaps others could do the same?

Sw, I'm not quite sure what you mean, but everyone is going on about compliance at the moment because Farnell and RS have decided that these can't really be classed as development boards (and thus avoid compliance certification) when there are (probably) hundreds of thousands of orders and one of the stated aims is to get them into schools to teach programming - not the domain of a development board.

Also this is a worldwide device and I think it is fairly safe to say that places like the US are fairly litigious in nature. If for any reason, and I mean any reason, this board caused a problem with any other electronic device and it hadn't got the relevant certification, I'm sure someone, somewhere would try and sue for something.

I am fairly sure that at school (a long time ago) we used to do things that were distinctly not compliant with any form of health and safety (making Chlorine gas in Chemistry springs to mind) but things are a lot different know.

If it was possible, I would happily sign an indemnity to get my hands on a Pi now, but things just don't work like that.

I'm not entirely sure what the original poster means, but it seems to be a rant against compliance, and that is a very severe mistake.  The primary goal of Rpi is to give inexperienced youngsters a very cheap computer for learning and experimenting.  It's not aimed at electronics engineers nor radio amateurs who know what they're doing and can deal with non-compliance problems.

I find it hard to believe that it's encouraging electrically non-certified equipment being given to kids and non-techs.  Perhaps someone needs to think about the potential dangers a little bit more.

Industrial compliance standards exist for a very good reason, not just to delay time-to-market.  The first 10k batch is not going to developers only but to all-comers, because the Foundation advertised it repeatedly as a very capable media computer that runs XBMC and OpenELEC very nicely, so the interest is very broad.  They even suggested that kids could use Rpi at home so that they don't mess up Dad's PC.

No surprise then that a large proportion of the first batch will be going into normal domestic situations.  This makes it inarguable that the position that RS, Farnell, and the BIS have all taken is the correct one.  It's the same as applies to Arduino boards, which are all fully certified.

Here is the relevant paragraph giving details of the BIS ruling, taken from Element 14's FAQ:

• HOT OFF THE PRESS UPDATE FROM EBEN UPTON OF RASPBERRY PI EARLIER TODAY
• “We have spoken with BIS this morning, and have been told that, given the volumes involved and the demographic mix of likely users, the development board exemption is not applicable to us; as a result, even the first uncased developer units of Raspberry Pi will require a CE mark prior to distribution in the EU...... ....we are working with RS Components and element14/Premier Farnell to bring Raspberry Pi into a compliant state as soon as is humanly possible.”

Note the important words "the demographic mix of likely users".  Given this fact, no other possibility was viable, nor sensible.

Morgaine.