Here here!
I agree completely with your sentiments Jason.
Thank you Marco very much for the information!
Regards,
Andrey.
Mark,
> how is having a subsized low cost development board in advance not a
> good thing for the open-souce community?I hope nothing in my comments could be construed to imply otherwise.
> i think your sticking point is not being able to purchase OMAP4 in
> small quantity.> is that correct?
Pretty much, yes. It's not that *I* want to design my own OMAP4
board, but rather the things which tend to go along with including
hardware in the mission:-- more people designing add-on boards -> more interest in the
hobbyist community -> greater diversity of applications
this fits more with the intended role of the BeagleBoard
-- encouragement to use the DSP for things other than video encode/
decode
again this fits more with the role of BeagleBoard
-- a more stable dev platform for everyone, because the HW geeks are
more likely to offer design improvements, whereas the typical Android
developer doesn't care. this is analogous to the open- vs closed-
source models of SW development---when the community gets inside the
debug loop, quality is higher.
once again, more the role BeagleBoard. the whole purpose of providing
PandaBoard as quickly as possible to the community is to get the
device in the hands of developers. all due diligence is paid to
getting it as stable and robust as possible, but it is EXPECTED to not
be on the same functional level as the BeagleBoard/OMAP3 series.
Again, none of this is meant to imply that PB has not been hugely
successful in Linux/Android development. It has. It's just that BB
demonstrates, in my view, a superior model, because you can have
everything PB has, and more besides. I mean, offering OMAPx for sale
at Digikey and openly encouraging derivative-hardware projects is not
going to adversely impact the development successes that are happening
with PB, will it?
only superior in that it mets the goals you have in mind.
> if you look at the history of OMAP3 series you will find that it too
> was also not able to be purchased in small quantity. as the chip was
> moved into the catalog portion of TI, it then became available.I don't have knowledge of the pre-BB timeline. Is the situation with
OMAP4 really the same as OMAP3, just at a different point in its
lifecycle? Seems like OMAP4 has been around for quite a while now.
And, HW guys become markedly less interested in OMAP(n) once OMAP(n+1)
is sampling. We're getting close to that point with OMAP5, no? Was
OMAP4 already sampling to customers when BB was first offered for
sale?
from the start of OMAP it has been that way:
Maybe our views are not so far apart, but you are taking it as a given
that each new OMAP will be unavailable in small quantities for a
protracted period---in fact well beyond the point at which you can buy
products with that OMAP inside! I am questioning whether this is
really necessary. I'm glad it doesn't work this way with the other TI
parts I buy, like op-ampsand I wonder what tangible benefits TI
derives from this policy.
and yes, pretty much all of the TI parts work in similar manner....
Mark
thanks for the information. your feedback has made it extremely
evident that the PandaBoard project needs to do a much better job of
conveying the goals and purpose of the project to the community.
Dave
this fits more with the intended role of the BeagleBoard
[...]
again this fits more with the role of BeagleBoard
[...]
once again, more the role BeagleBoard. the whole purpose of providing
PandaBoard as quickly as possible to the community is to get the
device in the hands of developers.
But no one has explained how the PB model "gets the device in the
hands of developers" any sooner than a BB model would, except to
assert that this is the way things are, without providing reasons why.
> Again, none of this is meant to imply that PB has not been hugely
> successful in Linux/Android development. It has. It's just that BB
> demonstrates, in my view, a superior model, because you can have
> everything PB has, and more besides. I mean, offering OMAPx for sale
> at Digikey and openly encouraging derivative-hardware projects is not
> going to adversely impact the development successes that are happening
> with PB, will it?only superior in that it mets the goals you have in mind.
Don't you think this is a bit unfair? Even assuming that "my goals"
are an outlier, you didn't address the substance of my argument at
all.
> I don't have knowledge of the pre-BB timeline. Is the situation with
> OMAP4 really the same as OMAP3, just at a different point in its
> lifecycle? Seems like OMAP4 has been around for quite a while now.
> And, HW guys become markedly less interested in OMAP(n) once OMAP(n+1)
> is sampling. We're getting close to that point withOMAP5, no? Was
> OMAP4 already sampling to customers when BB was first offered for
> sale?from the start of OMAP it has been that way:
I don't see how the wikipedia article is relevant to my point, which
questioned whether the trajectories of OMAP3 and OMAP4 are really
comparable, in terms of the time between first samples vs. first
availability in unit quantities. (There are very few dates in the
wiki article.) So I did a few minutes of research on google. BB was
introduced in early- to mid-2008. I don't know when OMAP4 first
sampled, but I'm guessing it was quite a bit later. OMAP5 is now due
to sample sometime in the next year (press reports still claim 2011
but that may be out of date), and there is no indication of OMAP4
availability in small quantities anytime soon. So I stand by my
point, and critique.
thanks for the information. your feedback has made it extremely
evident that the PandaBoard project needs to do a much better job of
conveying the goals and purpose of the project to the community.
I actually think the official PB goals and model have been well
communicated. But you shouldn't be surprised when folks question
whether said model is optimal for TI and the community, especially
when other models are available for easy comparison
Mark
haunma wrote:
I don't see how the wikipedia article is relevant to my point, which
questioned whether the trajectories of OMAP3 and OMAP4 are really
comparable, in terms of the time between first samples vs. first
availability in unit quantities. (There are very few dates in the
wiki article.) So I did a few minutes of research on google. BB was
introduced in early- to mid-2008. I don't know when OMAP4 first
sampled, but I'm guessing it was quite a bit later. OMAP5 is now due
to sample sometime in the next year (press reports still claim 2011
but that may be out of date), and there is no indication of OMAP4
availability in small quantities anytime soon. So I stand by my
point, and critique.
I don't think the history of Beagle or Panda is something that will
influence TI in it's decision to release OMAP4 as a catalog part to the
general market or not. A catalog part needs to be well supported for
small and medium sized customers and that is a costly thing to have
and thus has to be justified by the expected revenue.
With the SOC release cycles accelerating, I can understand that TI
skips one generation for catalog parts - mobile phone manufacturers
can skip from OMAP-N to OMAP-N+1 every year, but industrial customers
might expect an SOC to be supported for several years - At the moment
TI has a hard time for get OMAP35xx customers to switch to 37xx because
they would like to drop 35xx..
<<I don’t think the history of Beagle or Panda is something that will
<<influence TI in it’s decision to release OMAP4 as a catalog part to the
<<general market or not. A catalog part needs to be well supported for
<<small and medium sized customers and that is a costly thing to have
<<and thus has to be justified by the expected revenue.
Well stated. I doubt OMAP5 ever becomes a catalog part
— On Wed, 12/14/11, Vladimir Pantelic vladoman@gmail.com wrote:
> From: Vladimir Pantelic vladoman@gmail.com
> Subject: Re: [beagleboard] Re: omap5 Beagle
> To: beagleboard@googlegroups.com
> Date: Wednesday, December 14, 2011, 2:54 AM
>
> haunma wrote:
>
> > I don’t see how the wikipedia article is relevant to my point, which
> > questioned whether the trajectories of OMAP3 and OMAP4 are really
> > comparable, in terms of the time between first samples vs. first
> > availability in unit quantities. (There are very few dates in the
> > wiki article.) So I did a few minutes of research on google. BB was
> > introduced in early- to mid-2008. I don’t know when OMAP4 first
> > sampled, but I’m guessing it was quite a bit later. OMAP5 is now due
> > to sample sometime in the next year (press reports still claim 2011
> > but that may be out of date), and there is no indication of OMAP4
> > availability in small quantities anytime soon. So I stand by my
> > point, and critique.
>
> I don’t think the history of Beagle or Panda is something that will
> influence TI in it’s decision to release OMAP4 as a catalog part to the
> general market or not. A catalog part needs to be well supported for
> small and medium sized customers and that is a costly thing to have
> and thus has to be justified by the expected revenue.
>
> With the SOC release cycles accelerating, I can understand that TI
> skips one generation for catalog parts - mobile phone manufacturers
> can skip from OMAP-N to OMAP-N+1 every year, but industrial customers
> might expect an SOC to be supported for several years - At the moment
> TI has a hard time for get OMAP35xx customers to switch to 37xx because
> they would like to drop 35xx…
>
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|
Mark Lazarewicz wrote:
<<I don't think the history of Beagle or Panda is something that will
<<influence TI in it's decision to release OMAP4 as a catalog part to the
<<general market or not. A catalog part needs to be well supported for
<<small and medium sized customers and that is a costly thing to have
<<and thus has to be justified by the expected revenue.
Well stated. I doubt OMAP5 ever becomes a catalog part
as far as I know, omap5 will in fact go catalog.
If one can extrapolate from the past, its the even numbered OMAPs
that stay closed while the odd numbered ones go public