[ddevault]

This is a disappointing response. I don't have a horse in this race (besides wanting to have access to good hardware for FOSS platforms), but I do have my ear on the ground in this community, so here are my thoughts on this.

> [removing SPI] was based on the fact that for years SPI was largely unused on PINE64 devices.

People have been arguing that a u-boot firmware needs to be installed on that flash chip for years, too. Essentially everyone in the dev community has been pushing them to do this for essentially the entire lifetime of their product line.

Would you rather find, download, and flash a special-purpose, pinebook-specific image onto a microSD card, pop it in, and boot that up to install a distribution, or would you rather it supports a standard UEFI booting interface over USB, netboot, whatever else, like every other laptop can?

> We created a space for development talks to be held (as we always had)

My understanding from speaking to friends and colleagues who work with Pine64 is that these spaces are pretty toxic. Manjaro has the loudest voice and other projects don't get the respect they deserve. And I'm prepared to believe it if this flippant response quoted in Martijn's article is accurate: "people who want [an SPI chip] can just solder one on."

This is not the behavior that I expect from a project which claims to honor its community.

I'm very disappointed in this response and in PINE64 generally. I expected an apology and a promise to improve, and this isn't it. Pine, I believed in you from the start.[0] I thought you were better than this. The past few years of your behavior has disillusioned me to your project and I can no longer offer you my support.

[0]: https://drewdevault.com/2019/12/18/PinePhone-review.html

[ocdtrekkie]

So as is practically stereotypical for the Linux community, we're going to let a squabble over distros send us to buying proprietary hardware and more than likely... straight up giving Google more money, as seems to be the top hardware choice of vendors of so-called "secure Android forks".

[tartoran]

This is the achilles heel of linux

[Sakos]

The whole story has killed any interest I had in their products. I was interested in buying a Pinebook and Pinephone, but not anymore.

[wiz21c]

Me too, I was hoping to get a Linux phone at a price that match the current lack of polish (for me the pinephone had that price) but Linux means community and diversity for other OS'es to me. So if they don't work with the community, then half the value of the phone disappears...

I will now consider buying second hand phone with postmarketOS support. It means I'll have to accept proprietary hardware but, as it will be second hand, it means I'll be more in line with my eco-environemental-whatever-half-baked principles.

Nobody cares, I just wanted to illustrate what are the reasons I would like to buy a Pine64 and how those reasons revolves around some basic principles and trade off's.

[linmob]

You could also get a second-hand PinePhone (just buy postmarketOS CE or later to avoid bad hardware bugs).

Regarding other postmarketOS supported devices, I quite like the Xiaomi Pocophone F1 and the OnePlus 6 - but be aware that bootloader unlock on the Xiaomi is a bit painful and charging on the OnePlus 6 is really slow (although that might have been fixed lately/be fixed soon).

[illuminerdy]

I had been looking at an electronic soldering iron they had produced. Not sure how I feel now.

[MartijnBraam]

The Pinecil works really great. Have been using it for a while now. The non-linux products from pine64 are pretty good.

[mschuster91]

It's an excellent soldering iron, hardware wise. Lightweight, heats up extremely fast, holds up heat very well. Never tried a custom firmware, but had no need either.

[kube-system]

The pinecil is very good.

Although the firmware mine came with had an issue and I did have to update it, I now prefer it to my Hakko.

[preisschild]

Their single board computers and soldering irons are very cool

[chylat]

> Would you rather find, download, and flash a special-purpose, pinebook-specific image onto a microSD card, pop it in, and boot that up to install a distribution, or would you rather it supports a standard UEFI booting interface over USB, netboot, whatever else, like every other laptop can?

It's possible to write Tow-Boot to the eMMC to do exactly this. SPI isn't needed, it's just more convenient. I happen to prefer SPI and Pine64 was willing to go with SPI too.

I think this issue is blown out of proportion.

Pine64 listened to feedback. The problem here was that timeline's didn't match, not bad intention.

[megous]

> "people who want [an SPI chip] can just solder one on."

That's how many of the SBCs I own (from differen vendor) are distributed. There's a space to solder the chip. (and you can pick the size you want)

[MartijnBraam]

Might be acceptable for SBCs, definitely not for phones and laptops

[immibis]

If you want to buy a phone that Just Works, buy a Samsung Galaxy or a Google Pixel.

You can also buy a Pine64 product and if you do not like the hardware you are free to modify it to your heart's content. However, they don't owe it to you to perform the modifications you want, certainly not if there is a shortage of the part you want them to install.