In my last post, I mentioned the Cloverleaf project (possibly a dream given form but definitely not our last, best hope for peace...) that is gaining a fair amount of attention in the RISC OS world. As a keen RISC OS user and someone who is considering a new hardware purchase, I thought I'd give you a run down of the project and my own thoughts on it.
At heart, Cloverleaf is an attempt to use crowdfunding to not only bring new hardware to the RISC OS market, but also to support development of and improvements to the OS itself. Their website states that they aim to provide an alternative to Microsoft, Apple and Google produced operating systems, and bring support for modern day functionality such as Wifi, USB3 and NVMe drives to the OS. These are noble goals. The crowdfunding isn't live as of yet but they have provided details on the hardware and prices on their website, screenshots of which are below. So let's have a look at what they are asking for.
For 99 euros (approx £90), you can become a RISC OS supporter.
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| Screenshot from Cloverleaf Website. |
This gets you a download of the Cloverleaf Distro for RISC OS hardware and emulators, and supports development of the OS. There is also a t-shirt and a printed copy of Archive magazine. Depending on how much you want a t-shirt, this isn't a bad pledge amount. The copy of Archive is a nice touch (and also included with each computer bought as well) and I hope the t-shirt's are available in a suitable range of sizes - not all of us are as slim as we used to be!
If it's hardware you're after then the cheapest option is the Cloverleaf Kitten 64 for 299 euros (£275 approx). This includes a 100 euro (£91 approx) support pledge for further RISC OS development.
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| Screenshot from Cloverleaf website. |
Taking the support pledge away for a moment, £184 for that spec machine is rather decent, using as it seems to the Pine ROCKPro64 board as its foundation. You get a fast multi-core processor (of which RISC OS will only support one core but hey, it's a development need), 4GB of RAM, which is more than enough for RISC OS, and a reasonable amount of storage to get you going. This does sound like a handy little machine though, from the listing, you don't get a keyboard or mouse. Then again, they're not going to break the bank to add yourself if you don't have any lying around the house.
The step up from the Kitten is the the Cloverleaf Puma 128, costing 599 euros (£550), again with a 100 euro (£91) support pledge.
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| Screenshot from Cloverleaf website. |
This ups the storage to a 128GB NVMe drive, so bigger and faster. You also get a keyboard and mouse in with the package. As the main board is the same as the Kitten 64, I am wondering what else there is to justify the 300 euro (£275) price difference. I have seen pictures on the Cloverleaf Facebook Group that shows the case with a DVD drive installed but there's no reference yet as to whether it's included in this higher priced machine or if it's an extra to be added later.
On to the laptops now, and this is an area that, outside of old Acorn A4's, has lacked dedicated hardware until the release of the Armbook and re-purposing of Pi-Tops. As with the desktops, there are two models in the Cloverleaf line-up.
Your budget option is the Cloverleaf Netbook, yours for 399 euros (£365) including a 50 euro (£45) support pledge.
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| Screenshot from Cloverleaf website. |
Unlike the desktop options, you have a different processor but still more than enough for the purpose of the OS. You get an 11-inch display, 2GB of RAM, a reasonable amount of SD storage and, well, that's pretty much it. From what I can tell, this is a re-badged Pinebook which is no bad thing. After all, that's also what the Armbook is. I do have a question as to whether the Netbook will have a similar set of RISC OS utilities as supplied with the Armbook to improve the RISC OS laptop user experience. That same question also applies to the high-end machine.
The Cloverleaf Notebook is 599 euros (£550) with a 100 euro (£91) support pledge.
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| Screenshot from the Cloverleaf website. |
This sees a return to the same Rockchip RK3399 processor as the desktop range. We have 4GB of RAM and 128GB NVMe storage of the Puma desktop along with a 14-inch display. This is a re-badged Pinebook Pro - again, no bad thing. For the sake of appearances though, I do feel they shouldn't have just copied the Puma spec for the Notebook - unless you also get a wireless keyboard and mouse with the laptop...
The last machine in the line up is the Cloverleaf All-in-one PC, yours for 899 euros (£820) with that 100 euro (£91) support pledge.
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| Screenshot from the Cloverleaf website |
I'm not sure about the need for an all in one design but since they're offering it... You get the same basic spec as the Puma desktop but with a different storage set up and that built-in 24-inch display. This is probably the machine I am the least excited about just because I am not a fan of all-in-one designs. I prefer to have the freedom of hooking up my own monitor, but that shouldn't take away from the intention of producing such a form factor.
So there you have it, the range of computers Cloverfield want to release. By using the already available hardware from Pine64.org, a lot of the risk any crowdfunded hardware project entails should be mitigated, as the availability of the Pinebook-based Armbook attests. That surely counts in the project's favour.
But...
(and you knew there would be a "but", right?)
But... there are a few questions I'd like to see answered by the time pledges go live.
Question One: What is the reason for the price difference between the Kitten and the Puma (either a line from an episode of The Man from Uncle or one of the worst interview questions ever devised)? That 300 euro difference cannot just be for the NVMe drive, keyboard and mouse. Those three items can be had from Amazon for less than 80 euros (£72) so even doubling that for fitting and margin, that still leaves a hefty 140 euro difference and at heart it is the same specification board.
Question Two: Will there be a similar suite of utilities as provided with the already available Armbook to cover keyboard/mouse mapping, battery, lock screen and the like? That software is something that makes the Armbook a more attractive purchase than the Netbook/Notebook models at the moment and from a laptop users perspective, near essential.
Question Three: How exactly is the support funding going to be used? I can see from the website the project targets but some more detail on where and how the money is to be spent would be nice. After all, they're asking for £45/£90 per pledge to go into a pot that ideally requires some explanation beyond "here's what we'd like to spend it on."
I am incredibly interested in the aims of the Cloverleaf project. I've followed them via their various social media profiles from their early days and have appreciated how engaged they have been with the RISC OS community in general. I know crowdfunding has had its share of successes and failures, but I'd say I am optimistic about this one. The basic hardware is already in production for other purposes so I am intrigued to see how much their funding goals are (given the relatively small size of the RISC OS market at present). If the above questions are answered in due time (and address the points raised), then I'll happily support the initiative, leading to a dilemma: choosing which of the machines to get (apart from the all-in-one, obviously!).
Regarding the Armbook, I have at least heard of RComp before, and It’s been on the scene since before Acorn sank.
ReplyDeleteBITD I bought a Risc station 7500, which was basically Simtec’s 7500 board assembled into a chassis with Risc OS and other packaging handled. I don’t know whether it was worth what I paid for it, but it was one of several attempts to continue the platform, and that was in the day when the Linux community wasn’t really generating many hardware platforms. (You *could* buy an empeg, or an ARM Integrator board, but neither filled that niche) it was also when Risc OS was closed source, under the dual licence of “either pay PACE or ROL a lot of money, or have a quiet word with that stranger at the back of the user group meeting, I don’t know who he is, honest!”
At the moment there are lots of people who do work on a patronage basis, charging over the odds for something on the understanding that you are investing in their work, if you look at you tubers, they’ve grown their fan base by putting in the work and investing the time first.
I had not heard of cloverleaf six months ago, when I search for Stefan Fröhling I find no prior connection with the community, the webpage does not list Risc OS’s features as platform advocacy, it implies that these are achievements of cloverleaf, an illusion that is bolstered by search engines slapping a link to Wikipedia’s Risc OS page right next to the search results. There’s a picture of a case looking reminiscent of the 3DO, but there’s nothing to convince me that I can’t find that board as a naked device somewhere. There’s nothing here that persuades me that cloverleaf are invested in this beyond a business opportunity.
First question: why should I pay cloverleaf, who have yet to show me anything, rather than RCI?
The wish list on the website is, conservatively, about a million quid’s worth of development, and that’s assuming that they leverage open source components, such as Netsurf as much as possible. Are cloverleaf going to do the work themselves, or are they going to contract out on a feature bounty basis? The later would at least get people familiar, and personally invested in the codebase involved, but how much will cloverleaf garnish of that?
Some of those targets are as much authoritative as they are developmental: in the good old days Acorn could say “this is the API for doing such and such, comply with it!” Since then we’ve had ... issues... *cough* TwoUSBStacks *cough*,
so my next question is “What credentials and qualifications do cloverleaf have for researching and making strategic decisions about the platform architecture? Why should we expect the community, including people who already have attempts and experience of these problems under their belt, to follow their lead?”
I can’t tell someone how to spend their money, that is in-fact central to my argument. But looking at their webpage I have no confidence that they are or will properly attribute the work of other people to other people, or that the people (person?) behind cloverleaf has any investment in the platform beyond seeing it as a business opportunity.
It’s easy to generate hype in the Risc OS community, all you need to do is persuade a couple of user groups to let you talk one evening.
Thank you for the comment, it raises valid points and also covers a couple of my questions in the original post. I didn't want to come across as too waspish in my post (I have been rightly accused of that before on a totally different topic) but clarification is needed before I could support Cloverleaf. I am hoping these clarifications and more information will be provided inside the crowdfunding “pitch”.
DeleteThere is the hint of this being too good to be true – new hardware, updated software, on-going support – and I am, at heart, a cynic. In my day job as a software QA bod, if a developer passes some code over for testing with the comment that it’ll be a quick and simple test job, my eyebrows rise to the point of joining the nape of my neck! It’s never that simple. Ever. Similarly, any crowdfunding project gets a gimlet eye from the get go. With Cloverleaf, you rightly question if it’s purely a business opportunity. That raises questions over long term commitments to the platform and underlying motives. I don’t for one second claim to know what these are for Cloverleaf beyond their website/social media announcements so, for me, it boils down to an issue of trust. Do I trust Cloverleaf to deliver on their statements?
That, ultimately, depends on the funding pitch. I’d like answers to my questions. I’d also (and this wasn’t in the post), like to understand their cost/profit calculations. The ROCKPro64 board that appears to be powering the majority of the hardware costs $79.99. That’s less than 70 euros. How does that factor into a machine costing 499 euros (deducting that dev pledge), which will probably not include shipping and other costs if ordering from the UK?
How much are they going to ask for as an initial goal, considering they are asking for a dev pledge within the cost of the kit? Too high and I doubt they’ll reach it. Too low and that raises red flags (and eyebrows). And, as always with crowdfunding, you’re not buying a product as such, you’re buying the promise of a product and therein lies the risk.
As for the development side of the project, I agree with you. That, perhaps is the biggest roadblock for me. I can understand costs of putting together a hardware package and think that Cloverleaf are looking to turn a profit. As for the dev funds, that could be construed as “pocket money” for the team after they hardware is taken care of. It could also be added to the bounty system currently used to fund development, though I doubt it. Again, it’s a funding pitch query that needs to be answered before any chance of backing the project can occur. When Cloverleaf launch their funding initiative, you can expect another blog post with my thoughts and comments about that. At that point, I may just bite the bullet and buy the Armbook.