[Arm-netbook] Some Pine64 Experiences (via Planet Debian)

[Paul Boddie]

Hello,

I saw this on Planet Debian today:

"Once more this is where, once again, the story turns bleak. We find a very
pretty website but no obvious link to the software (hint scroll to the bottom
and find the "support" wiki link) once you find the wiki you will eventually
discover that the provided software is either an Android 5.1.1 image (which
failed to start on my board) or relies on some random guy from the forums who
has put together his own OS images using a hacked up Allwinner Board Support
Package (BSP) kernel."

http://vincentsanders.blogspot.com/2016/10/the-pine-stays-green-in-winter-
wisdom.html

I wonder what the licence compliance situation is with the vendor's own
software. And some of the other experiences, particularly involving
reliability, give a depressing sense of déjà vu to anyone with any moderate
amount of experience with ambitious single-board computer efforts where the
vendor shipped hardware without proper software support, arguably to get
"bottoms on seats" and to drum up business.

The author also makes some pertinent remarks about form-factor proliferation
which seems appropriate to mention here, too. :-)

Paul

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[Wookey]

Post by Paul Boddie
Hello,
"Once more this is where, once again, the story turns bleak. We find a very
pretty website but no obvious link to the software (hint scroll to the bottom
and find the "support" wiki link) once you find the wiki you will eventually
discover that the provided software is either an Android 5.1.1 image (which
failed to start on my board) or relies on some random guy from the forums who
has put together his own OS images using a hacked up Allwinner Board Support
Package (BSP) kernel."
http://vincentsanders.blogspot.com/2016/10/the-pine-stays-green-in-winter-
wisdom.html

Vincent Sanders (kylikki) is a fairly high-level 'some random guy'.
He's part of the 'Debian digerati' in Cambridge and a _very_ long-time arm
kernel developer, so he does at least have plenty of clue.

Doesn't mean he'll keep looking after this board with new images, of
course. Which is perhaps what you meant by 'random... OS images'.

Post by Paul Boddie
I wonder what the licence compliance situation is with the vendor's own
software. And some of the other experiences, particularly involving
reliability, give a depressing sense of déjà vu to anyone with any moderate
amount of experience with ambitious single-board computer efforts where the
vendor shipped hardware without proper software support, arguably to get
"bottoms on seats" and to drum up business.

I don't really know about the pine people specifically, but having
recently met with a guy from Allwinner (who is paying Luke to educate
his engineers :-) Allwinner are definitely trying to improve things so
that we hackers get a proper experience (either docs or code with a
suitable licence), at least for some 'annointed-for-use-by-developers'
chips to start with (which is still missing the point rather, but them
concentrating efforts on selected products to start with probably
makes practical sense, and maybe one day it'll apply to everything, as
it should). One fight at a time...

They have noticed the persistent bad press/poor reputation and have
understood that what geeks think does actually matter in the long
term, as does upstreaming. It's a big company of course and not
everyone gets it yet, but I think we'll see progress over the next few
months, and hopefully be in a rather better place this time next year.

If we can get Allwinner to DTRT then a) it's much easier for board
manufacturers to DTRT and b) we care less because we can fix things
ourselves and mainline stuff can be used.

Wookey

[Paul Boddie]

Post by Wookey

Post by Paul Boddie
"Once more this is where, once again, the story turns bleak. We find a
very pretty website but no obvious link to the software (hint scroll to
the bottom and find the "support" wiki link) once you find the wiki you
will eventually discover that the provided software is either an Android
5.1.1 image (which failed to start on my board) or relies on some random
guy from the forums who has put together his own OS images using a
hacked up Allwinner Board Support Package (BSP) kernel."
http://vincentsanders.blogspot.com/2016/10/the-pine-stays-green-in-winter
- wisdom.html

Vincent Sanders (kylikki) is a fairly high-level 'some random guy'.
He's part of the 'Debian digerati' in Cambridge and a _very_ long-time arm
kernel developer, so he does at least have plenty of clue.

Not arguing with you there. Given his apparent involvement with NetSurf, I
start to wonder whether he was in the RISC OS scene at some point - the name
is familiar, certainly - but perhaps I shouldn't say such unkind things in
public. ;-)

Post by Wookey
Doesn't mean he'll keep looking after this board with new images, of
course. Which is perhaps what you meant by 'random... OS images'.

For the record, I'm quoting Vincent here, so the "random guy" is actually
someone else. Going to the forums to find out who he means is one of those
infuriating experiences involving some phpBB clone, lots of forums and
"subforums", zillions of multipage threads, and presumably lots of people
"hanging out" on "the boards" while useful information drains away through the
cracks. However, it appears that Simon Eisenmann is the "random guy", in fact.

Post by Wookey

Post by Paul Boddie
I wonder what the licence compliance situation is with the vendor's own
software. And some of the other experiences, particularly involving
reliability, give a depressing sense of déjà vu to anyone with any
moderate amount of experience with ambitious single-board computer
efforts where the vendor shipped hardware without proper software
support, arguably to get "bottoms on seats" and to drum up business.

I don't really know about the pine people specifically, but having
recently met with a guy from Allwinner (who is paying Luke to educate
his engineers :-) Allwinner are definitely trying to improve things so
that we hackers get a proper experience (either docs or code with a
suitable licence), at least for some 'annointed-for-use-by-developers'
chips to start with (which is still missing the point rather, but them
concentrating efforts on selected products to start with probably
makes practical sense, and maybe one day it'll apply to everything, as
it should). One fight at a time...

With regard to the vendor, I was referring to the Pine people, and I think
Luke had a rant about them in the context of ordering products from Allwinner
and not using that as leverage. After all, the Pine people are on the hook for
any copyright infringement at the point of delivering products as part of
their campaign.

Post by Wookey
They have noticed the persistent bad press/poor reputation and have
understood that what geeks think does actually matter in the long
term, as does upstreaming. It's a big company of course and not
everyone gets it yet, but I think we'll see progress over the next few
months, and hopefully be in a rather better place this time next year.
If we can get Allwinner to DTRT then a) it's much easier for board
manufacturers to DTRT and b) we care less because we can fix things
ourselves and mainline stuff can be used.

DTRT is "do the right thing", I guess: nothing to do with device tree. ;-)

I guess this is something that more established companies figured out a while
ago. I hope that they see that getting out of their own way actually creates
opportunities.

Meanwhile, significant international partners should be doing their part, too:
I noticed that Imagination had managed to prise the jz4780 SoC programming
manual out of Ingenic for public dissemination around their Creator CI20
product, albeit without any documentation for Imagination's own technologies
embedded in that product. Not everyone finds reverse-engineering new stuff a
rewarding use of their time, especially when there's plenty of other new stuff
out there.

Paul

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[Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton]

Post by Paul Boddie
I noticed that Imagination had managed to prise the jz4780 SoC programming
manual out of Ingenic for public dissemination around their Creator CI20

right. ingenic are an extremely small team: they simply haven't got
time to mess about with "support" issues for people who aren't
directly paying them. the amazing thing is that ingenic fully
recognise this and just dump the entire source (albeit of really quite
old kernels and u-boot but at least it works) directly onto their FTP
server.

i really really like ingenic, it's just that they've gone too
specialist (and are sticking with ultra-low-power single and dual
core), and their attempts to do 4-way or above SMP obviously didn't
work out as well as they'd hoped (we had rumours of a jz4790 quad-core
SMP design a couple years back, which never panned out).

now, here's the thing: what i might do is see if i can go meet them,
and point them in the direction of RISC-V, particularly the work being
done by the lowRISC team. they could either learn from that (and make
themselves a decent SMP design) ooorr..... they could make a really
decent RISC-V SoC, using some of the interface hard macros that
they've already got.

l.

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[Paul Boddie]

Post by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton

Post by Paul Boddie
I noticed that Imagination had managed to prise the jz4780 SoC
programming manual out of Ingenic for public dissemination around their
Creator CI20

right. ingenic are an extremely small team: they simply haven't got
time to mess about with "support" issues for people who aren't
directly paying them. the amazing thing is that ingenic fully
recognise this and just dump the entire source (albeit of really quite
old kernels and u-boot but at least it works) directly onto their FTP
server.

Your reports about the connectivity issues probably explain quite a lot.
(Thanks a lot for posting entries from your travel diary, by the way!)

Ingenic has tried to push code into various places - SourceForge, GitHub - but
it isn't a sustained effort, and the connectivity problem probably makes it
even more of a chore to have to deal with such services. Best to just have
one's own repositories and server, I think. Amusingly, the first obvious link
I've seen to Kim Dotcom's Mega service appears on Ingenic's site. I guess that
if you just want to get the stuff out there, that makes as much sense as
Dropbox and all the "acceptable" sharing services. ;-)

Post by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton
i really really like ingenic, it's just that they've gone too
specialist (and are sticking with ultra-low-power single and dual
core), and their attempts to do 4-way or above SMP obviously didn't
work out as well as they'd hoped (we had rumours of a jz4790 quad-core
SMP design a couple years back, which never panned out).

They do have this focus on "Internet of Things", following on from
smartwatches, and I suppose it makes sense for what they're offering.
Similarly, those ICubeCorp people now seem to be focused on network equipment,
if I understand the gist of their site.

Post by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton
now, here's the thing: what i might do is see if i can go meet them,
and point them in the direction of RISC-V, particularly the work being
done by the lowRISC team. they could either learn from that (and make
themselves a decent SMP design) ooorr..... they could make a really
decent RISC-V SoC, using some of the interface hard macros that
they've already got.

I don't have much to say on whether their architecture choices make sense. I
note that the jz4780 documentation mentions "MIPS" as opposed to just
"XBurst", and maybe there is mileage for them in continuing along the same
path, perhaps incorporating technologies from MIPS, perhaps evolving their own
XBurst extensions.

Just a communication of interest could be useful, I suppose, given that
Ingenic products aren't generally available through the obvious western
channels (as far as I can tell) and thus no other convenient mechanism for
communicating ongoing demand seems to exist.

Paul

P.S. On the subject of openness in general, for any small operation it does
make sense to limit support to people who are genuine customers. One might
argue that as long as they have customers who approach them directly and
business is conducted on that basis thereafter, there is no need to cultivate
a general audience for their products.

But at some point the lack of public documentation undermines general
confidence and interest in the products being offered by any such company.
Random engineers are less and less interested in having to enter (or having
their managers or superiors enter) some kind of sales relationship to get
access to materials, when it all could end in important materials being
withheld once the supplier has gained what it wants from the relationship.
(Think about how a lot of recruiters operate if you want another example!)

It's tempting to frame such differences in working as "east versus west"
cultural differences, but they are not: "enter a relationship with us to get
things done" is precisely the kind of thing that still permeates western
academia, not helped by the rampant "intellectual property" opportunism
infecting academic institutions. It may be the case that working together will
bring about more rapid progress, but when one first has to evaluate who to
work with, and when the basis of that evaluation is a limited amount of public
information, a lot of time is wasted before any actual work can be done.

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[Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton]

hiya paul, sorry cut all the context: the main thing is, these fabless
semiconductor companies are increasingly seeing themselves as
*solutions* providers *NOT* as "makers of processor designs". that's
why they go to the lengths of creating the software (which is of
course usually GPL-violating, except in ingenic's case).

they're looking to be the "one-stop-shop" for ODMs. we - the software
libre community - are just "interfering". a total waste of their
time. etc. etc.

shenzen is where all that breaks down. everything's available. it's
chaos, it's uncontrollable, there's nothing anybody can do about it -
government or companies: anyone can get anything, but what they they
can't get is information about SoCs: that's up to you to find,
elsewhere. the shenzen suppliers, you can get datasheets from them if
they think you're serious. you have to know what you're doing. this
makes the EOMA68 strategy *even more* sound as i've utilised parts
that are entirely commonly available and in some cases have been for
ten to twenty years. i've got another update coming out shortly about
this.

so. the next thing to do is: find other SoCs. i'm going to start
with the S5P6818 from nexell and the M150 from Ingenic. if the
distributor i've been put in touch with about the S5P6818 doesn't
respond soon i'll try a different approach. it's the SoCs that are
the hard part: the laptop, microdesktop and the planned 1280x800
tablet housing, they're easy and once they're made there's *no need to
change them* - ever. not unless one of the components goes EOL...
across *all* the suppliers that make it in this hodge-podge called
Shenzen where they copy each other like mad.

l.

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[Matt Campbell]

Luke, I'm surprised you're interested in the Ingenic SoCs again. I
thought you had given up on them because there aren't any current libre
distros for the MIPS architecture. Has anything changed in that regard?

Regardless, I, for one, would strongly prefer an ARMv7 or ARM64 based
SoC, for one reason: an ARMv7+ processor can run a huge variety of
Android apps. While many on this list will want to run 100% libre
software on their EOMA68 computers, I think the possibility of running
proprietary Android apps, perhaps in a sandboxed VM on top of a libre
OS, would increase the appeal of EOMA68 computers to a lot of people.

Matt

Post by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton
hiya paul, sorry cut all the context: the main thing is, these fabless
semiconductor companies are increasingly seeing themselves as
*solutions* providers *NOT* as "makers of processor designs". that's
why they go to the lengths of creating the software (which is of
course usually GPL-violating, except in ingenic's case).
they're looking to be the "one-stop-shop" for ODMs. we - the software
libre community - are just "interfering". a total waste of their
time. etc. etc.
shenzen is where all that breaks down. everything's available. it's
chaos, it's uncontrollable, there's nothing anybody can do about it -
government or companies: anyone can get anything, but what they they
can't get is information about SoCs: that's up to you to find,
elsewhere. the shenzen suppliers, you can get datasheets from them if
they think you're serious. you have to know what you're doing. this
makes the EOMA68 strategy *even more* sound as i've utilised parts
that are entirely commonly available and in some cases have been for
ten to twenty years. i've got another update coming out shortly about
this.
so. the next thing to do is: find other SoCs. i'm going to start
with the S5P6818 from nexell and the M150 from Ingenic. if the
distributor i've been put in touch with about the S5P6818 doesn't
respond soon i'll try a different approach. it's the SoCs that are
the hard part: the laptop, microdesktop and the planned 1280x800
tablet housing, they're easy and once they're made there's *no need to
change them* - ever. not unless one of the components goes EOL...
across *all* the suppliers that make it in this hodge-podge called
Shenzen where they copy each other like mad.
l.
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[Paul Boddie]

Post by Matt Campbell
Luke, I'm surprised you're interested in the Ingenic SoCs again. I
thought you had given up on them because there aren't any current libre
distros for the MIPS architecture. Has anything changed in that regard?

Luke mentioned the M150 in the context of a video camera, but my impression
was not that it would be the SoC in an actual EOMA68 card, but rather that it
would be part of the actual camera hardware itself. The product page indicates
"Embedded 128MB LPDDR" for the M150:

http://www.ingenic.com/en/?product/id/12.html

Just that part as is would make for a nice upgrade to the jz4720 used in the
Ben NanoNote. :-)

It would be interesting to know what the "GPU" is in the related M200
products, however, and whether it is anything supportable in future. Those
products have one "fast" (1.2GHz) and one "slow" (300MHz) core and support for
external RAM.

On the topic of distros, gNewSense did support mipsel for the Loongson
hardware, but it seems unlikely that this support will continue without
suitable hardware (without proprietary firmware requirements, of course) being
made available. So we have a chicken and egg problem! Of course, Debian still
supports mipsel, so the issue is nothing to do with general software
availability.

Paul

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[Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton]

Post by Wookey
I don't really know about the pine people specifically, but having
recently met with a guy from Allwinner (who is paying Luke to educate
his engineers :-)

correction / misunderstanding: he's not.

Post by Wookey
They have noticed the persistent bad press/poor reputation and have
understood that what geeks think does actually matter in the long
term, as does upstreaming.

well, it's about to get a hell of a lot worse. i flew 20,000 miles
round the world, was invited here to speak with their engineers, help
them out, set up a FusionForge for them, make it possible for them to
present the R-Series processors to open hardware and software libre
people across the world, even present the idea of using RISC-V and
Nyuzi 3D for a future processor...

... and i learn the day after that from being on their premises for
only five hours i've been accused of being here to commit industrial
espionage, to steal their proprietary source code.

now, from 20 years experience i know that i cannot work with engineers
who do not welcome what i have to say or contribute. in this case i
cannot even be in the building because there is the opportunity that
if someone else *does* actually commit industrial espionage, they
might accuse *me* - and the person who invited me into the building -
of being the one that stole the code.

this from the company that's been stealing software libre source and
profiting with complete disregard or respect for the people whose work
they critically rely on.

i'm really upset.

i'll be leaving zhuhai either today or tomorrow.

if they apologise i'll come back.

irony is that i need somewhere to live for myself and my family, and
zhuhai looks like it's the best place to be.

l.

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[mdn]

This is unacceptable behavior from them.

Post by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton

Post by Wookey
I don't really know about the pine people specifically, but having
recently met with a guy from Allwinner (who is paying Luke to educate
his engineers :-)

correction / misunderstanding: he's not.

Post by Wookey
They have noticed the persistent bad press/poor reputation and have
understood that what geeks think does actually matter in the long
term, as does upstreaming.

well, it's about to get a hell of a lot worse. i flew 20,000 miles
round the world, was invited here to speak with their engineers, help
them out, set up a FusionForge for them, make it possible for them to
present the R-Series processors to open hardware and software libre
people across the world, even present the idea of using RISC-V and
Nyuzi 3D for a future processor...
... and i learn the day after that from being on their premises for
only five hours i've been accused of being here to commit industrial
espionage, to steal their proprietary source code.
now, from 20 years experience i know that i cannot work with engineers
who do not welcome what i have to say or contribute. in this case i
cannot even be in the building because there is the opportunity that
if someone else *does* actually commit industrial espionage, they
might accuse *me* - and the person who invited me into the building -
of being the one that stole the code.
this from the company that's been stealing software libre source and
profiting with complete disregard or respect for the people whose work
they critically rely on.
i'm really upset.
i'll be leaving zhuhai either today or tomorrow.
if they apologise i'll come back.
irony is that i need somewhere to live for myself and my family, and
zhuhai looks like it's the best place to be.
l.
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[Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton]

Post by mdn
This is unacceptable behavior from them.

yes... but it's perfectly understandable. i don't have to _like_ it,
but it's perfectly understandable.

actually it's a reflection on *themselves*. they're saying - not to
me - but to *themselves*, "if *we* were this person, *we* would
steal". they're afraid of this "foreigner" who knows that they've
stolen GPL source code for years, and they expect me to enact out
RETRIBUTION by doing exactly what they've done, namely... to steal
from them in REVENGE.

they have no inkling that the consequences for me would be far beyond
anything that i could possibly gain from by such irresponsible action
(including legal ramifications, in PARTICULAR that i'm in china: i
would end up in jail potentially for 20 years to life if i did
anything so fucking stupid as to steal from them... that's not so much
the problem as it is that i wouldn't be able to complete the goals
that i've set, from inside a chinese jail), not to mention that it
would entirely defeat the educational objective lesson that is is
*they* who need to be the ones to take action (namely, to comply with
copyright law and alter their internal procedures right across the
entire company to match). if someone (whoever it is) comes in and
simply *takes* the source code, that COMPLETELY defeats the object of
the exercise.

there's a book called "Invisible Dynamics" which describes the six
systemic laws that businesses *must* respect, or pay the consequences
for not doing so. one of those systemic laws is to recognise and
respect the contribution of all employees (and by extension
contributors). allwinner, by taking the linux and u-boot source code
and not respecting the software license, is breaking that fundamental
systemic law.

now, they don't *understand* that, which is why they're getting into
difficulties... but they can feel that there is something wrong,
without being fully aware (as individuals and as a company) of exactly
what. they can see the public fuss but we're failing to get it across
to them, we're being angry, rude and generally giving the impression
that we're a bunch of fucking gwailo foreigner dickheads that they can
*really* easily justify ignoring, not to mention exactly as you say,
wookey and phil, it's a pee aitch pee bee bee where you can't find a
damn thing, times a hundred, how on *earth* are the going to get any
kind of useful insights out of a dog's dinner forum?

so.

anyway.

i'm done being pissed off.

useful ideas and insights appreciated. and contacts in the chinese
software libre community.

l.

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[Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton]

ok so thank you so much to the people who have got in touch already,
and also to those who've made enquiries, the more chinese nationals
who are involved in software libre i can put in touch with my
contacts, here, the better.
l.

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[Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton]

if anyone knows of someone in china who is familiar with free software
and can come over to zhuhai can you please get in touch with them
urgently and ask them to contact me.
l.

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[m***@gmail.com]

Post by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton

Post by Wookey
I don't really know about the pine people specifically, but having
recently met with a guy from Allwinner (who is paying Luke to educate
his engineers :-)

correction / misunderstanding: he's not.

Post by Wookey
They have noticed the persistent bad press/poor reputation and have
understood that what geeks think does actually matter in the long
term, as does upstreaming.

well, it's about to get a hell of a lot worse. i flew 20,000 miles
round the world, was invited here to speak with their engineers, help
them out, set up a FusionForge for them, make it possible for them to
present the R-Series processors to open hardware and software libre
people across the world, even present the idea of using RISC-V and
Nyuzi 3D for a future processor...
... and i learn the day after that from being on their premises for
only five hours i've been accused of being here to commit industrial
espionage, to steal their proprietary source code.

I bet you wished you met them on neutral ground. Someone there is got very
antsy with your arrival on their turf.

Like Frank Herbert wrote "Show me a completely smooth operation and I'll
show you someone who's covering mistakes. Real boats rock."

An you just got bitten by the one covering mistakes.

Post by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton
now, from 20 years experience i know that i cannot work with engineers
who do not welcome what i have to say or contribute. in this case i
cannot even be in the building because there is the opportunity that
if someone else *does* actually commit industrial espionage, they
might accuse *me* - and the person who invited me into the building -
of being the one that stole the code.
this from the company that's been stealing software libre source and
profiting with complete disregard or respect for the people whose work
they critically rely on.
i'm really upset.
i'll be leaving zhuhai either today or tomorrow.
if they apologise i'll come back.

I hope they do but I doubt they will (be able to). Luckily the A20 is
available on the open market. But I guess some suppliers will be steered.

Good luck. And don't forget to breathe.

Post by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton
irony is that i need somewhere to live for myself and my family, and
zhuhai looks like it's the best place to be.
l.
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[Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton]

Post by m***@gmail.com
Good luck. And don't forget to breathe.

thx mike, yes i can get the A20 on the open market.

l.

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[joem]

Post by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton
well, it's about to get a hell of a lot worse. i flew 20,000 miles
round the world, was invited here to speak with their engineers, help
them out, set up a FusionForge for them, make it possible for them to
present the R-Series processors to open hardware and software libre
people across the world, even present the idea of using RISC-V and
Nyuzi 3D for a future processor...
... and i learn the day after that from being on their premises for
only five hours i've been accused of being here to commit industrial
espionage, to steal their proprietary source code.

:)

Calmer heads can prevail.

1. I had hoped you went in there with a seasoned translator and wise man
to defend you.

2. Remember pro microshaft engineers and executives are there as well
who could have made those silly finger pointing and escalated it.
It is in their nature.

3. In my experience of working in CN, you have a little cash, so you can
afford to be generous and get them to make some modules and kick start
business relations. No one would be interested in money talk or Linux
talk or anything else with specific headings. What they want is business
and lots of it if they rolled out the red carpet for you. So put your
business hat on, and focus around what makes orders happen. Talk about
BOM, timescales, what software you will get, and rights because you
represent the open source world, drivers, documentation, interim boards,
modules (may be pay for several modules to be built - DRAM, CPU, power
supply etc for debugging work). etc. etc. etc. If you can place a new
thoughtful order on every new meeting, you will certainly be their hero.

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