Moderators in the employ of Broadcom.

[pluggy]

As an old cynic and a veteran of several run ins with a moderator who is a Broadcom employee.

How many of the moderators are in what could be termed a "conflict of interest" situation ?

I'm on the board of trustees of a charity with paid employees and there are strict rules about who can and cannot be a trustee, which is all about conflict of interest, and having a position of trust on a popular board tied to a charity(a moderator) is kind of the same.

Most of the mods have a very rosy view of the Pi, and I suspect them playing down the flaws may not be entirely through choice........

Lets face it, the Pi IS Broadcom. The Model A is little more than a Broadcom chip with a few extra bits. And the founder of the RPF has to be one of Broadcom's better ambassadors......

[malakai]

I am none of the above but I don't always see it that way at all. Many want to jump on the bandwagon this doesn't work or that should work that is fine if they promise that it will. Many discussions get hijacked into a deep discussion of how it is broken but there is no way of reproducing the error if it cannot be reproduced it cannot be proven to be an issue and at worst how can you fix it if you can't find the cause. But 12 pages of oh it doesn't work that is great troubleshooting by the user I installed this and it's broke why don't you people fix this. This is not productive.

I don't see anyone singing praises to the chip holding it higher than any other chip out there. If anyone finds an issue become part of the solution not part of the party bandwagon of this is just not working and never will. Is slapping on a different chip always the fix to an issue considering you have Linux, 3rd party vendors and code that is not even verified by Debian as stable. Much is in Development status at least a lot of the items I have looked at say that is the case. Should the Broadcom employees fix Linux, are problems like Scratch issues the Foundations problem just because we don't see everything they do does not mean they are not pouring resources into resolving the issue. As far as I know issues with Scratch are being addressed. They say that they are should I consider this a conspiracy that they are just blowing smoke because I don't see it.

This organization is a charity aimed towards Education I would assume their goal first and foremost is resolving the issues that would stop the product from working in an educational environment. It's taught myself and my children so I would say they have succeeded my $175 investment on 5 Pi's has been returned 10 fold mostly because I knew exactly what I was buying I knew exactly what risks were involved before I purchased the device because I took the time to know what I was buying before I bought it.

[pluggy]

I don't subscribe to conspiracy theories, I take the aims of the foundation as read. I'm just suspicious of the mods.....

Man did land on the Moon in 1969.
The WTC was destroyed by terrorists flying planes into them in 2001.
Princess Di was killed by her chauffer with too much booze in his blood trying to outrun the paparazzi......


I have 3 Pis. I have learnt to suffer the flaws.

[PeterO]

On one hand you say

I don't subscribe to conspiracy theories,

And on the other you clearly think the mods are in a conspiracy with Broadcom....

Most of the mods have a very rosy view of the Pi, and I suspect them playing down the flaws may not be entirely through choice........

Which is it to be ?
PeterO

[Jessie]

As I recall Eben made intitial prototypes with AVR chips made by Atmel. The marrage of Broadcom to this device came because of the discounts offered to the foundation due to their employment at Broadcom. Initial investments were all fronted by Eben and Liz. Now that the R-Pi has sold almost 1M boards I bet they could get other SOC vendors to offer up small batches for alpha boards, but back durring concept working at Broadcom made it easier to get a small run made.

Conflict of interest? No not at this point. If you could prove to me that Broadcom is making some kind of massive proffit at the expense of the user experience then I would buy it. Tell me how this will fail to be an educational device because of these people working at Broadcom? At this point with the gerber files out there and almost 1M in sales I'm supprised that another SOC vendor hasn't made a package compatible with the current board.

So yes the Pi is pretty much a Broadcom product, they give a decent discount on the SOC and allow foundation members some time at work for the project. However, simply changing out the SOC would make it someone else's product so I fail to see your point. That is kind of what a SOC is about...integration.

I think this tread is pretty typical in Open projects. People want what they want and want to bitch when they don't get what they want. Send the guy you have an issue with a pm, or send Liz a pm about him but don't air your laundry here. I fail to see how this thread is anything other than Troll bait, so its getting locked. If the other mods feel otherwise they can unlock it, and anyone reading can PM them petitioning them to unlock it (don't send me one because I obviously have already decided what I think about it.)

[jamesh]

As an old cynic and a veteran of several run ins with a moderator who is a Broadcom employee.

How many of the moderators are in what could be termed a "conflict of interest" situation ?

I'm on the board of trustees of a charity with paid employees and there are strict rules about who can and cannot be a trustee, which is all about conflict of interest, and having a position of trust on a popular board tied to a charity(a moderator) is kind of the same.

Most of the mods have a very rosy view of the Pi, and I suspect them playing down the flaws may not be entirely through choice........

Lets face it, the Pi IS Broadcom. The Model A is little more than a Broadcom chip with a few extra bits. And the founder of the RPF has to be one of Broadcom's better ambassadors......

Since I believe I might be the moderator being questioned here, I'll give an answer.

No, I do not believe there is a conflict of interest. Obviously I'm not going to say anything bad about Broadcom (that would put my job at risk), but then, I'm not going to say anything bad about the Foundation either, since this is their forum, and as a moderator for them, saying bad things about them would be tantamount of moderator suicide. So in effect there is no difference. It's no different to being an Apple employee on the Apple forums. Note that criticism of Broadcom on the forums would generally be regarded as a bad thing, whether or not a moderator worked there, purely because they are a supplier who give the Foundation a decent rate for the chips, and that relationship should not be put in jeopardy. In fact, there is actually a certain amount of criticism on the forums, but I'm afraid really bad stuff gets removed. Nothing to be done about that. If you want to criticise the Foundation or Broadcom, you don't do it here. And let's be honest, the Internet is a big place, there's plenty of room elsewhere.

Worth remember that I'm a lowly employee at Broadcom - would you regard Eben Upton being a technical director of Broadcom a conflict of interest?

It's a moderators job here to ensure things stay polite, and to keep the Foundation supported in their endeavours. That sometimes involves asking people to chill, telling them off or even banning them (that happens very infrequently, contrary to what some may have you believe). One thing that we do need to do is ensure that what are regarded as minor problems are not continually given exposure. One of these is the USB issue. Most people see no issues with USB (and its getting better all the time, and I personally believe all remaining problems will be fixed in due course - that's not rosy, that's just what I think), but to read some of the comments here, you'd think it is a disaster of epic proportions. And that's one of the things moderators need to do - keep things in proportion. The problem is that some people see this as 'hiding under the carpet' - especially if they have a problem because to them it IS a disaster. If you have a problem with USB, then from the limited viewpoint of 1 or 2 Raspi's you might have a 100% failure rate, and that is bad from your perspective. But as a proportion of the entire customer base, it's a very small proportion indeed.

It's all about proportion.

[mahjongg]

Just for the record, I am not in the employ of broadcom, in fact I have no relationship with broadcom or the RPF in any way, other than having volunteered to moderate this forum.