RPi use cases explained

Here is my take on this odd situation.  There are several needs and types of stakeholders in the Pi ecosystem:

• Conceptual need in EE.  Eben Upton has many times related the problems he experienced while doing student recruitment  at university, where each year's intake candidates were seemingly  less technically experienced than the last.  I can well believe that, because we saw exactly that same problem in my own engineering department, to the point where we had to provide catch-up courses to bring part of the student intake up to the level where they could  understand basic 1st-year EE lectures.  Making very cheap hardware available that encourages experimentation by inquisitive youngsters does seem to address part of the problem squarely by fostering interest and offering direct experience with hardware.  However, it doesn't address the gap in mathematics and foundational science skills.

• Improving IT education.  The UK has a specific problem in school-level IT education, in that over time it became nothing more than vocational training in office skills.  Clearly there is much room for improvement there, but this is almost entirely unrelated to the skills shortage observed in EE recruitment.  CompSci departments might benefit a little if programming were taught in schools, but not a lot because lack of programming skills is not the bottleneck,  Stronger maths skills would be vastly more useful than programming knowledge, and would help EE as much as every other branch of engineering and the physical sciences.  Also, programming is almost always vocational training with just a smidgeon of CompSci education acquired by osmosis on the side, and very rapidly becomes dated.  To compound matters further, a high-level language with a lot of abstraction would tend to be chosen for programming education, which means that pupils would tend to learn little about computer fundamentals unless they have an awesome teacher who explains the foundations along with the programming.

• Cheap media centre.  Don't laugh, this is a major stakeholder group for Pi.  What's more, RPF have always known this, because they have promoted the very strong media capability of the Broadcom SoC countless times in their blog.  They even went as far as to sell licensed codecs which are about as distant from educational as anything could be.  This area may well be getting the most development effort as well, which is reasonable since it plays to the Pi's biggest strength and makes a very large group of Pi users happy.

• Platform for expansions.  It always did seem odd that the Foundation so often stressed the difficulty of reaching their $25/$35 price point, and yet created a board bearing proprietary MIPI DSI and CSI-2 connectors which raised the board cost and complicated PCB routing.  Even more odd is that these MIPI interfaces would not contribute significantly to the board's educational capabilities since USB cameras and displays with open interfaces were readily available at good prices.  The subsequent high investment by RPF in developing camera and display modules suggests that this was a planned business strategy from the start, and it explains why the extra connector cost was considered justified.  One possible view is that there is business advantage in creating a platform for which expansion modules could be produced using a proprietary interface spec that narrows the competition.  Whether or not that was the thinking, it is the current actuality since RPF has invested time and money in expansions and delivered product.

• Enthusiasts/makers hacking platform.  Quite distinct from the needs of EE and UK IT education, a  large group of stakeholders is the worldwide and ever-growing community of makers and related enthusiasts, which may or may not be technical.  This group is heavily interested in creative projects which typically underpin some other area of interest that isn't itself computing.  The Foundation has from the start shown some interest in supporting this group, as evidenced by the board's P1 interfacing header and the near-miraculous provision of SoC peripheral interfacing information from a SoC manufacturer that has shown very little interest in supplying open documentation.  The enthusiast/maker community is strongly aligned with the open source software and open hardware communities since closed/proprietary devices impede rather than support building things.  Unfortunately RPF has been lukewarm in this area as the board is not open hardware, the SoC has very little open documentation, and not all of the software is open source either.  Undoubtedly most of the blame for this lies with Broadcom, but RPF spokespersons have defended the restriction of information themselves as well.

• Commercial for-profit product.  This stakeholder group is small but obvious.  RPF is a registered non-profit, but Premier Farnell and RS are not, and so the Pi has to justify its place on warehouse shelves.  The typically high profits on accessories probably make this quite easy though.

It's pretty clear from the above that the Pi ecosystem has multiple interested parties and drivers, and proceeds along many roads simultaneously with varying degrees of support from the Foundation.

In other words, the Raspberry Pi's concept, rationale, targets and user base are not correlated.

Getting a single view from anyone (especially RPF) is no more productive than all those blind men feeling different parts of the elephant.  To say that it was designed for IT education is completely wrong if intended literally --- Pi would not have been designed as it was nor targetted so strongly at non-educational stakeholders if that had been the primary intention.  This makes the question of "Why is there still no educational release?" a simple one to answer:  IT education was only one driving force, and clearly not a major one.

The only certain position is from objective engineering:  it's an ARM board with specific pros and cons, and it's those pros and cons that determine its effectiveness or otherwise for any given application.  I guess that's more boring than hype-laden official positioning statements by people with vested interests, but in contrast to them, it's accurate.

Morgaine.

Morgaine Dinova wrote:

 

• The subsequent high investment by RPF in developing camera and display modules suggests that this was a planned business strategy from the start, and it explains why the extra connector cost was considered justified.  One possible view is that there is business advantage in creating a platform for which expansion modules could be produced using a proprietary interface spec that narrows the competition. 

Actually the proprietary nature of the interface doesn't seem to be much of a problem. The actual camera sensors with the same interface and physical plug appear to be reasonable easily available off ebay and such like as spares for phones.

The roadblock is the bits that are buried inside the GPU.

I'd have to say that I originally thought the camera was a daft idea, but it's cheap enough that I bought one anyway.  If JamesH manages to sort out a couple of software niggles, I can see it having a reasonable future as a very cheap megapixel security camera amongst other things.

I see someone has already produced an aluminium case with a mount for the camera and externally a mount for additional standard lenses.

I think that's where the maker community shines.. by taking these cheap component parts and combining them into all sorts of interesting ideas.

coder27 wrote:

 

Just so I can't be accused of letting you down by neglecting to report significant RPi news,

or in case anyone's writing a book on the history of RPi, here are some perhaps underreported tidbits.

 

by liz » Wed Jun 26, 2013 5:12 pm

This thread remains locked, but zerxy also appears to be the person who's been busily trying to vandalise the Wikipedia page on Raspberry Pi, which resulted in it being put under protection (which we don't contribute to because of NPOV - doesn't stop us reading the history page, though,

http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=45512&start=36

I'm zerxy.  I suggest to anyone interested that they check out my "vandalism" of the Raspberry Pi page on Wikipedia.

Stuart,

   Welcome!  The moderation on this forum is night-and-day different from rpi.org

or wikipedia.  You can make insightful observations here without fear of banning,

outing, thread-locking, reverting, etc.  If your wikipedia edits are something you

would like to discuss here, feel free.

coder27 wrote:

 

Eben [cut] apparently had his position as Director terminated as of 07 Jan 2013:

     http://opencorporates.com/filings/181509848

or maybe as early as 18 December 2012:

      http://opencorporates.com/companies/gb/06758215

That seems clear enough, but "Why?" is a more difficult question.  I wonder if there is some kind of rule in UK about directors of non-profits not being allowed to simultaneously be directors of for-profit companies on which the non-profit is dependent?  Or maybe some kind of tax reason?

Maybe someone should simply ask him at his next personal appearance in an RPF role.  I remember from his early days that he used to answer questions quite clearly without the evasion that is typical of politicians and PR people.

With such a large numebr of RPI malcontents runingon this forum I can only say it will be a matter of time before the Fanboi horde finds us and chases us about with torches and pitchforks

Maybe someone should simply ask him at his next personal appearance in an RPF role. 

Maybe RPF should set up a web site with an "About us" page that says who their officers

and directors are.

Maybe RPF should set up a web site with a forum where questions like this can be asked.

Maybe E14 can tell us who signs any recent contracts on behalf of RPF.

lots of maybe's.

With such a large numebr of RPI malcontents runingon this forum I can only say it will be a matter of time before the Fanboi horde finds us and chases us about with torches and pitchforks

Perhaps.  But the Fanboi horde has been told by JamesH that it's worthwhile reading this forum,

and not too many have shown up to cause trouble.  The ones that do, it's pretty obvious who they are.

by jamesh » Mon Sep 24, 2012 12:51 pm

Please take some of what said on that forum with pinch of salt - lots of pie in the sky thinking on there, which tend to gives people the wrong idea. They don't have any more information available than anyone here - less in fact than the mods here. Obviously we cannot make changes to that site when there is wrong information - that's E14's moderators jobs and they don't actually have any as far as I can tell! It also tends to be frequented by people who have been banned from this site for various reasons, so can have some rather bitter and unpleasant commentary. That said, there is also lots of good information there, so worthwhile keeping an eye on it. Just keep the above in mind.

That seems clear enough, but "Why?" is a more difficult question.  I wonder if there is some kind of rule in UK about directors of non-profits not being allowed to simultaneously be directors of for-profit companies on which the non-profit is dependent?  Or maybe some kind of tax reason?

OK, here's what I think Andy has been struggling to explain.

UK charities have rules about for-profit trading: 

  http://www.charitycommission.gov.uk/publications/cc35.aspx#d

A trading subsidiary must be used in any case where there would be a significant risk to the assets of the charity, if it were to carry on non-primary purpose trading itself (see C8). ...

RPF apparently felt the need to spend a few hundred thousand dollars of what would

have likely been scarce charitable funds to buy up 50,000 256MB RAM chips around

the October 2012 launch of the 512MB version.

RPF also apparently felt the need to expand its marketing scope to include non-charitable

industrial applications such as digital signage.

So the RPF set up a trading subsidiary, "Raspberry Pi (Trading) Limited",

Company number: 08207441, on September 10, 2012.

Eben was appointed a director of the subsidiary on Jan 07, 2013,

coinciding with the termination of his directorship of RPF, per RES01

dated December 18, 2012.

http://bizzy.co.uk/uk/08207441/raspberry-pi-trading  (see "documents" tab)

The subsidiary's directors are listed here:

https://www.duedil.com/company/08207441/raspberry-pi-trading-limited/people

with only Eben and Jack Lang in common with the original six RPF directors.

A 30 April 2013 news report explained:

Eben Upton, executive director of the Raspberry Pi Foundation said: “On the basis of guidance received from our professional advisers, we've separated the existing trading activities of the Foundation into a wholly-owned trading subsidiary, Raspberry Pi (Trading) Ltd, while the Foundation continues to pursue its original educational mission. This is apparently considered best practice for charities which conduct significant commercial activity – charity shops would be a good example.”

http://www.businessweekly.co.uk/hi-tech/15343-california-boost-as-raspberry-pi-takes-new-commercial-view

Maybe now we know what Pete Lomas was hinting at on Sept 25, 2012, when he wrote:

What we learned is that you have to sell out (a little) to sell (a lot).

And it may shed some new light on Eben's comments:

I don't believe that there was any way that we could have done this as a commercial venture. I mean, you see the number of sales and it's easy to think, “Wow, I wish I could make some profit out of that!”. You're generating all this value and none of it is going to your wallet. But in practice actually it's fantastic.

http://www.techspot.com/article/531-eben-upton-interview/

Excellent bit of research, coder27. I was looking forward to seeing RPi's 2012 numbers on the Charity Commission's website, but now they've started carving things up those numbers won't be quite so meaningful on their own...

As Jonathan said, very good research.

I now look forward to the RPF forum users openly discussing the for-profit activities of Raspberry Pi (Trading) Ltd, and quantifying the amounts extracted as profit versus those used for educational goals.  I'm sure the moderators there will be totally happy with letting the discussion proceed.

Jonathan Garrish wrote:

 

but now they've started carving things up those numbers won't be quite so meaningful on their own...

Some kind of lower and upper bounds on profit can  be quantified.  As I wrote back in #14 on this thread,

If the main aim were charitable support of education, the price of Pi would have dropped by now anyway.  Their BOM cost now is just a fraction of what it was in the days of 10k-30k volume costing, so if they wished to lower the barrier further, I bet they could, and very easily.   (Farnell and RS are likely to be making nice profits on accessories anyway.)

At 30k volumes, we know the BOM cost was below $35.  What's the typical level of bulk discount on the main components of a board like the Pi, say for 100k, 200k, 500k, 1m units?  Knowing typical figures for volume component discounts allows us to estimate the ballpark profits from sales of well over a million boards.

Jonathan Garrish wrote:

 

but now they've started carving things up those numbers won't be quite so meaningful on their own...

Some kind of lower and upper bounds on profit can  be quantified.  As I wrote back in #14 on this thread,

If the main aim were charitable support of education, the price of Pi would have dropped by now anyway.  Their BOM cost now is just a fraction of what it was in the days of 10k-30k volume costing, so if they wished to lower the barrier further, I bet they could, and very easily.   (Farnell and RS are likely to be making nice profits on accessories anyway.)

At 30k volumes, we know the BOM cost was below $35.  What's the typical level of bulk discount on the main components of a board like the Pi, say for 100k, 200k, 500k, 1m units?  Knowing typical figures for volume component discounts allows us to estimate the ballpark profits from sales of well over a million boards.

I think the division of profits has changed since the original "licensed manufacturing"

agreement that apparently had E14/RS taking the manufacturing risks and presumably

most of the profits, and reportedly leaving RPF with just a nominal amount for each unit.

The new agreement, apparently signed in January 2013, apparently has RPF doing the

manufacturing, explaining the delay in Model A shipments until Feb 2013, and presumably

has RPF keeping a correspondingly larger share of the profits, and permitting Egoman to

manufacture for the China market, and shifting E14's emphasis to accessories.

The financial public reporting requirements for UK charities are pretty extensive, especially for

amounts over £10,000,

We have seen

The latest Annual Accounts submitted to Companies House for the year up to 31/12/2011 reported 'cash at bank' of £47,963, 'liabilities' worth £120,044, 'net worth' of £4,243 and 'assets' worth £124,287.      Raspberry Pi Foundation's risk score was amended on 03/07/2013.

http://companycheck.co.uk/company/06758215

and

http://opencharities.org/charities/1129409

(consistent with an aborted attempt in 2009 to build a non-linux Python device

based on the arm-less BCM2727, followed by Eben's MBA up to mid 2011)

but I don't think we can expect to see similar detail on the for-profit subsidiary.

Liz has mentioned early on about how the laws prevent charity trustees from

benefiting financially from the charity, but I don't suppose those rules apply to

for-profit subsidiaries of charities.

Do you have any feeling for how the new agreement signed in January 2013 might correlate with the time when other retailers like Maplin and Adafruit started offering Pi boards?  I'm wondering if there was an exclusive deal for Premier Farnell and RS originally, and then that exclusivity was negotiated away to allow RPF to appoint further retailers to their heart's content.

It's an elusive area, since it seems we don't yet know from where those other retailers source their boards.  Very little transparency for what is portrayed as an educational project.

Maplin was elling the RPI and a limited number of peripherals around then but I think the number and volume started to rise about then but also they took on moreArduino stuff so that may of been more of a attitude change on Maplins part then any great RPI only scheme

Interesting.  If Maplin/Adafruit sales of Pi preceded the new agreement, then it suggests the following possibilities:

• There never was an exclusivity agreement for Premier Farnell and RS, so RPF extended the partnership.
• OR, there was exclusivity in distribution but not in retail, and Maplin/Adafruit were bound by RPF to retail only.
• OR, there was exclusivity but Farnell and/or RS had the right to broker new distribution deals, and did.

That's not a full set, there are other possibilities, but these seem the most likely.

It does seem to me though that Premier Farnell and RS have had no manufacturing involvement at all beyond offering their contacts in the far east, but just bulk ordered from RPF.  It was their cash that opened the door to volume.  It has felt like just distribution all along.