[throwaway000002]

I think aswanson is simply expressing his feelings. Broadcom has garnered goodwill from being involved with the Raspberry Pi foundation. Goodwill, I must add, from a broad swath of people who are not too technically inclined. Yes, the computer (or device if you're lacking generosity) is a god-send for those without the capacity to buy an Intel/AMD-based PC, but let's not kid ourselves: the device is less open than a PC was even 20 years ago. Which begs the question, in what capacity is the foundation moving computing forward? That's where I lose goodwill even for the foundation. Sure, they did something special, that really made compute affordable. But that was years ago. Now they need to make it open, so anyone, not just students, can answer probing questions about how the device works, and in so doing be able to make a Raspberry Pi device, or something totally different, for a whole new generation.

All this said, if you want cheap and software open, go with the Odroid C1 (China really is the future, and in this case a Korean firm is acting as the intermediary to Chinese silicon.) And if you want fully open, TI's Beaglebone. Good, solid, open, American.

[wolfgke]

> All this said, if you want cheap and software open, go with the Odroid C1

According to http://www.hardkernel.com/main/products/prdt_info.php the Odroid C1 uses a Mali-450 MP2 GPU. This is at least as closed as the VideoCore IV used in the Raspberry Pi.

[carussell]

So is it possible to get an Odroid C1 from Hardkernel now? I put in an order for one in December, and they canceled my purchase and said they stopped shipping to the US due to reports of missing packages. They said to order from ameridroid.com, which isn't served over HTTPS, and when you get to the checkout, you're taken to https://04622216-5b1d-11e4-8b60-14feb5da1938.mysimplestore.c....

"We designed our storefront to be indistinguishable from something resembling an sslstrip attack in action" leads to an "I guess I'll have to do without, then" response.

[userbinator]

The Odroid C1 uses an SoC from Amlogic, which is also American.

[throwaway000002]

Mea culpa. I see their SOCs on all these Chinese media-boxes that I just assumed they were Chinese. How did an American company break the Chinese market like that? Impressive! I should do research on who's running that ship...

[chernevik]

Whatever they are or aren't doing on hardware openness, Broadcom are doing a lot for open software with the Pi platform. That's quite a lot there, anyway.

[aswanson]

Dead on. Those pricks cost me about 5 weeks of progress at a startup because they didnt provide drivers for linux or a register set, much less a description. All because some clueless hardware guy used their chip because it was 'pin compatible'. Unless you are Apple or Dell, do NOT do a design with their chips.