So what I am about to say is not directed at any one person it is nearly a statement of my observations and my thoughts and feelings on these observations. When I first came across the pine 64 I was amazed at is stated capabilities and hardware capability. I having backed things on Kickstarter and indiegogo before knew going into this that these were essentially beta or even alpha esque boards, that there may be flaws and that the developers were working with others to get some choice operating systems running on this fairly impressive compute for its price point. All that being said I know that it was claimed they were working on this that or the other thing and I know this was due in part to the development board being fitted with slightly different hardware than production models all that is academic to me, but I understand how less tech savvy foods could be frustrated at the learning curve, lack of development support many not understanding how these community projects function, I do not have kind words to make it better, but I Jesus everyone to read learn and try to be a part of the solution it can be very rewarding.
The thing that has kind of got my goat for a lack of better term is the complaints about shipping.. this project kinda blew up and the one thing that crowd funding doors at times is mob funding. It would almost be easier for some of those over popular projects to hit a cap somewhere because you can't reasonably expect our plan for this kind of response, you would have to have the startup funds to get the startup funds and that is the very definition of catch 22.
To address this I would like to point out a few things, this project STARTED with ready to ship units, I have been part of and seen many more projects that start with nothing more than a prototype. I have projects I have backed that are less complicated than a pine but are already months or more past there expected ship date. Prior to this campaign I have never received a project without waiting at least six months. I backed this and had a board in around two months, that's with delays! That is amazing, and these guys have kept me in the loop with revised shipping schedules and just honesty and I respect the heck out of that.
That said I saw the writing on the wall the number of units pledged for was WAY MORE than expected, and the stuff in the backers kit compounded that exponentially and I knew it would. When I went to add something it would say this will delay your shipment I thought well let's not pile my extras on top of everything and wait for stuff to calm down before I jump into all the extras. This turned out to work in my favor. Eventually the store will often when there not pushing five thousand units out a week out our whatever the number is. When they are done putting out wild fires and can starts focusing on the hot spots.
What I am getting at here people is breathe, relax, this project for all the interest it has garnered is responding well, putting out a fan nice product and by all measures I have are doing so ridiculously fast for a.c. Kickstarter project. Even if it takes three or four months from project close to get your boards and things your still way ahead of my close to receipt time curve. Let them work and try to be understanding and sympathetic, when five or six months rolls round and there is still nothing your still ahead of my numbers. Of course your numbers may differ, but this is an open source community project jump in the water may be cold but you time and help is appreciated, and know that your boards are coming, they really are
