alt Hacker NewsThis effort seems less of a "Help us by buying our product" and more a plea for contributors as a FOSS effort, they want to do things like this: "Collabora + Flipper: Opening up the RK3576" https://www.collabora.com/news-and-blog/news-and-events/coll... , and are basically looking for developers and other technology enthusiasts to help them both with the projects themselves, and also try to network (socially) their way into convincing brands and companies to also open up themselves more:
> We're asking the community to help us polish RK3576 support so we can build a truly open platform together. We'd be glad for any kind of contribution, not just code. For example, maybe you can find a way to convince Rockchip to open up that last blob.
Then it seems like they're inviting anyone to participate in the entire development process too, should you be inclined:
> Openness has always been our thing. With Flipper One, we want to go further — not just open-source code, but an open development process. We're publishing our task trackers, internal discussions, half-finished docs, and architectural debates. All the messy stuff companies usually keep behind closed doors.
Seems the post mentions a bunch of stuff people can help with, CTRL+F "help" shows 16 hits even, but I am afraid even this does require actually reading the content. It kind of feels like if you can't be assed to read enough to figure out what they need help with, maybe you don't actually want to help them with even harder and involved stuff than that?
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A good Tl;dr; is never a bad thing in a world where everyone is being pulled in different directions for attention. I agree with you for the most part, but after reading the post, it's a mess and could do with a clear summary at the top...hell, even an index of relevant sections and sub-headings.
> to help us polish RK3576 support
Having a few various RPi's (as one does), when they've been out of stock, I've looked into the huge variety of similar SBCs (OrangePi, etc) which can be even faster, with more ports and features for around the same money as an equivalent RPi. Many are powered by various RockChip SoCs, which extend up to desktop replacement-level, but the Linux driver support is usually lacking in some important way.
It's not Linux's fault, it's a small group of volunteers struggling with little manufacturer support or documentation. I don't get why RockChip doesn't budget the money in the business plan to fund full driver support for at least some of their more capable chips. I guess maybe too many of these chips are used in non-OS contexts to be worth it?