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Comment by optforfon | Hacker News Reader

Well the first go around they really tried hard to hit a very ambitious price point and they ended up having to cut some corners and they sorta ended up with this chip that everyone seems to think is a bit of a mess...

It seems like version 2 or version 3 they could have gotten something a little less goofy. They have the clout to be able to make some good deals with any supplier. So you can sorta see why that people are frustrated b/c so much community effort is being spent on something that's sorta.. goofy. I wish there was the same community drive behind the ODROID boards for instance

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Doesn't help that the community around it is kind of toxic. They have a history of blaming end-users for problems caused by the Pi itself (like the keyboard and mouse issues and the SD card compatibility issues), insulting users who can't figure out how to get it working (which is incredibly difficult for non-technical users), promoting it to non-technical users for purposes like media playback and then blaming them for trying to use it like that and failing because obviously it's their fault for using it for something it's not designed for, etc.

Their community is a bit of a mixed bag. There are definitely some good people in there that help users fix problems, but I've seen the open hostility you're referring to as well, in my case I got posts about the progress of Android on the RPi removed by a moderator of their forums. If you go to the RPi forums now you'll find that the Android subforum has broken CSS. I have a PM from a mod indicating this was an intentional decision.

https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewforum.php?f=73

If they're so concerned about protecting their mission, I don't see why they encourage use of Kodi (well I do understand it, it sells boards, but Android support could be a good selling point too).

Woah woah, hold up a second here. It sounds like you're saying that someone who has sufficient enough access to change the html code on the Android sub-section of the RPi official forums has intentionally broken the display rendering because they... just don't want to deal with it? or, are tired of people asking about Android on the Pi(s)?

Edit: by blindly clicking around I found a post from a Foundation member that said they were locking the forum. Dated mid-March 2015, so i guess the css wouldn't matter anyway

> "so i guess the css wouldn't matter anyway"

As I said, I have proof via a PM from a forum mod that the CSS on that subforum was intentionally broken (it'd be easy to fix). The aim was to discourage any discussion of Android on the Raspberry Pi, as they saw it as going against the aims of the Raspberry Pi Foundation (the suggestion being that if students had access to Android they'd mostly use it with Android). There were three parts to blocking those discussions. First was to lock the Android subforum. Second was to mess up the CSS on that subforum so it was harder to use as an archive. Third was to lock/remove threads across all forums (including General Discussion) that were about Android on RPi.

If you don't believe me, try posting a thread on the Raspberry Pi General Discussion subforum about some recent Android on the Raspberry Pi progress:

http://www.ubuntufree.com/watch-android-6-0-marshmallow-and-...

https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewforum.php?f=63&sid=4a...

It's not that I don't believe you, the questions were genuine, it's just that it seems like an extreme solution to do in a behind-closed-doors, almost underhanded, fashion. I was under the impression that it was a supposed "open" hardware platform geared towards education and enabling kids to get into low-level computing. Android is incredibly popular among that demographic, and if they want to use the Pi to create things for Android, why stop them?

One thing I don't understand for example is the hostility against every single competitor out there and everyone that dares to say something critical about the RPI. The latter I find strange seeing they constantly improve these devices.

If it is really about education, get small inexpensive devices in the hands of millions, children... does things should be welcomed. Hell some of them attack a guy that wants to experiment with a different open source OS, that seems extremely conflicting with an open platform from my POV.

For me it is the opposite of being "open", seems more a marketing ploy to me.

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