Raspberry Pi interview: Eben Upton reveals all (Linux User) [LWN.net]

Raspberry Pi interview: Eben Upton reveals all (Linux User)

Posted Mar 6, 2012 9:19 UTC (Tue) by weasel (subscriber, #6031)
Parent article: Raspberry Pi interview: Eben Upton reveals all (Linux User)

It's a bit of a shame that they build presumably nice hardware to run Free Software on so that people can learn programming and experiment with the system, and then don't manage to ship the source to the free software blobs that they distribute from http://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads.

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Raspberry Pi interview: Eben Upton reveals all (Linux User)

Posted Mar 6, 2012 11:42 UTC (Tue) by wookey (guest, #5501) [Link] (2 responses)

'A bit of a shame'. I'd say it was a whole heap worse than that. Freedom matters, especially when the main thrust is all about understanding the whole computers and using it as an educational and practical tool.

But, hell - it's cheap. Who cares about principles. :-)

Raspberry Pi interview: Eben Upton reveals all (Linux User)

Posted Mar 6, 2012 18:41 UTC (Tue) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] (1 responses)

and after all, it's so critical that they provide mirrors of the source code when they provide unmodified binaries from another distribution, not doing so is a sin so large that the project should just fold and go away.

also keep in mind that other than beta samples, they have not shipped anything yet, these software downloads are just mirrors of files available from the distros directly.

Raspberry Pi interview: Eben Upton reveals all (Linux User)

Posted Mar 6, 2012 20:06 UTC (Tue) by weasel (subscriber, #6031) [Link]

Why do you think they shouldn't be asked to provide source for the binaries they provide. Are they somehow exempt from the requirements that bind other embedded devices' manufacturers?

And no, what they distribute on their website isn't just a blob that is available from Debian. And they are distributing this software now, independent of any hardware that may ship in the future.

I'm not saying they should "fold and go away" as you suggest. I'm saying they should get their act together and ship with source at the least when required.