ROOL Forum: Recent Posts

Sat, 08 May 2021 12:22:09 -0000

There’s no credit that I can see

It was me :) If you need any updates, just let me know!

Sat, 08 May 2021 11:44:56 -0000

Did you notice the €7,000 spent on advertising on Facebook? Between that and the overpaid “specialist” (seriously, that’s like six months of work at what I’m paid), we’re already up to €15,000. Is this money being well spent?

The social media stuff is odd, to say the least. I don’t know where the money is going, but it’s not on a human to personalise the outreach. I got a email a while back congratulating me on my RISC OS-related blog which apparently the writer read(!) and asking if I would consider joining their Facebook group.

If anyone can tell me where my blog is, I’d be very grateful – I seem to have inadvertently mislaid it, and it’s not where Cloverleaf told me it was.

Sat, 08 May 2021 11:38:38 -0000

As Stefan wrote, everything that he can influence will be “open source”, so if it brings improvements, it will probably also be incorporated into the ROOL distribution.

The problem is that, with one exception, I’ve never really seen the planned licensing terms for Cloverleaf projects made clear.

On the subject of that one exception, the intent was clearly not Open Source. When we were discussing the IDE, the proposal appeared to be to take existing projects, embrace and extend them, then release the results commercially to make money. The interest that Stefan had in WinEd appeared to evaporate when it was explained that its use of the GPLv2 licence might make that a legally tricky approach to take – although I did get an email later on telling me that the icons were nice and asking if I designed them¹.

Some absolute clarity, goal by goal, on what licences will be applied to the individual deliverables would go a long way to reassuring me about Cloverleaf. Ideally the exact licences to be used, and not just a woolly “open source”, because that can be significant too – especially for things to be integrated into the OS down the line.

¹ No, I didn’t. There’s no credit that I can see, but they’re quite distinctive in style so I could probably hazard a guess as to who did and I’m sure that others could do so too.

Sat, 08 May 2021 11:23:23 -0000

Oh, I hadn’t noted the money spent on that.

Did you notice the €7,000 spent on advertising on Facebook? Between that and the overpaid “specialist” (seriously, that’s like six months of work at what I’m paid), we’re already up to €15,000. Is this money being well spent?

Sat, 08 May 2021 09:19:37 -0000

This tends to remind me of running ‘Chocks Away Demo’

Of trying to practice landing – when some pesky Jerry tries to shoot me up!

(Wrong way around – but I think I give the idea)

Sat, 08 May 2021 09:06:53 -0000

I suspect that is a native English speaker dealing with text from a non-native source

Possibly, although just for the record I absolutely understand Stefan’s first language isn’t English and that’s exactly why I’ve not made comment on the spelling and grammar side of things and have only commented on the project itself.

(And yes, I didn’t spot my own typo in “transparency” when proofreading my message. :) )

Sat, 08 May 2021 08:40:04 -0000

If Cloverleaf actually followed all the guidelines and the project was presented clearly and transparently with a full plan, we’d probably not be having this discussion.

Totally agree.
My suggestions were a nudge towards that clear statement.

One really does wonder what actually came out of that 8,000 Euro they spent on a “crowdfunding specialist”. Doesn’t seem like money well spent as far as I can see

Oh, I hadn’t noted the money spent on that. If Stefan had advice, was it followed, or is the specialist not so special?

Every time I look at the project, I discover more things that’re concerning about it and the complete lack of transparancy transparency certainly doesn’t help.

I suspect that is a native English speaker dealing with text from a non-native source; plus a bit of Uber-enthusiasm causing Stefan to be unfocussed and missing delivering the message.

Enough on this, Stefan will feel we are kicking him whereas the intent of all here, I think, is to point a better direction.

Sat, 08 May 2021 07:45:17 -0000

So, if I understand you correctly, you meant the differences in terms of bundled software not the OS, am I right?

Not really, you’re reading far too deeply into it. I was merely using it as an example of two versions of the OS that, to people who don’t already know anything about RISC OS, are basically two versions of the same thing. Yes, ROL/Castle’s OSes were different in their approaches and internals, but as an outsider without the back story and history of that, you’d have no idea because they look and behave the same and wouldn’t have a clue how to choose which one you should go for.

I also never made any claims to have thought through all the details of how a single distribution would work – because I haven’t. I merely stated that in my opinion, having multiple distributions of effectively the same thing with different bundled extras in such a small market is silly.

At the end of the day, the comment on fragmentation was a very small part of the problems I see with Cloverleaf and their approach and was, as I say, just my opinion. You’re free to disagree, of course, but look at it from the point of view of someone who’s never used RISC OS before and sees it in the Raspberry Pi imager and decides to try it. Would you rather thay get a version that’s just the plain OS without much in the way of extras to play with, or would you rather the various companies producing these distributions work together and make the most publicised and easy to get distribution a better example of what the OS can offer by including the best bits of all of them in the one distribution that people are most likely to see and try out as their entry-point to the RISC OS world?

Yes, there’s flaws in the idea, it’d be a bit of a pain licensing-wise and sure, there’d still need to be room for commercial upgrades to be available later. As I say, I’ve not thought through every little detail of it. That wasn’t my intention.

By far the bigger issue with Cloverleaf is that it’s promising to do a lot of things that it’d requrie a lot of money to do, but it seems to be completely unable to show how it would do those things, specially with the newly revised goal of only 6,000 Euro. Both Kickstarters have been completely devoid of any plan for how they’re going to spend the money they may or may not get or how they’re going to go about developing the rewards they’re promising. They want you to send them money on the blind hope that they know what they’re doing when everything they’ve shown so far suggests they clearly don’t.

Part of the guidelines for honest and clear presentation on Kickstarter say:

(Do not) Set a funding goal that won’t allow you to bring your project to completion, or accept funds on Kickstarter with the knowledge that you’ll require future outside funds in order to fulfill all of your rewards.

As Peter notes, Stefan admitted during the first kickstarter that he’d need at least 100,000 Euro to complete his project, yet only asked for 50,000. Now he wants us to believe he can do it for 6,000. Again, though, there’s absolutely no plan listed with the Kickstarter on how he plans to achieve that or how he’s planning to spend the money he gets. All you get on the Kickstarter page is a “Please trust us” but there’s nothing to show why we should trust them. And, of course, when you ask for any clarification the standard procedure appears to be that you get shouted at and blocked from their channels for daring to question the project. That’s a great way of earning trust, right?

(As a side note, when I quoted that page on TIB, someone pointed out that they’re not rules but guidelines. I’m aware of that (and was when I made the original TIB post), but I’m pretty certain there’s a reason Kickstarter provide those guidelines and it’s precisely to avoid situations like the Cloverleaf mess. If Cloverleaf actually followed all the guidelines and the project was presented clearly and transparently with a full plan, we’d probably not be having this discussion.)

PS. The previous Kickstarter campaign mentioned me by name. I would like to make it clear that I have absolutely nothing to do with the Cloverleaf Project or Kickstarters.

And how many other people who Cloverleaf have said are working on things that their project will deliver are not actually involved in the project? Stefan keeps throwing people’s names out as if they’re part of his project, but as far as I can tell, almost all of them have nothing to do with it. Again, there’s no transparency here at all and Stefan wants you to send him money for things that he’s making out to be part of his project but are actually entirely separate and in most cases are already happening anyway with or without funding from Cloverleaf. Those things are far better suited to something like ROOL’s bounties than a Kickstarter campaign.

One really does wonder what actually came out of that 8,000 Euro they spent on a “crowdfunding specialist”. Doesn’t seem like money well spent as far as I can see – specially when the current Kickstarter is asking for less money than they spent on that specialist. No matter how I think about it, I can’t make that make any sense whatsoever.

Of course, decide for yourself if you want to give your money to the project. It’s your money and I don’t care what you do with it. Personally, I think there’s so many red flags in this Kickstarter that I do not see any reason to support it. Every time I look at the project, I discover more things that’re concerning about it and the complete lack of transparancy certainly doesn’t help.

Sat, 08 May 2021 02:53:22 -0000

It appears pretty simple to me, the previous Kickstarter would be at its best be described as ‘ambitious’, had a target price of 50,000 euros and a public admission from Stefan that 100,000 euros would be required to meet the project’s goals.

This second Kickstarter seems to have even more work needed in it, and yet a target price of only 6,000 euros.

There’s a lot of giving people the benefit of the doubt, “never wanting any negative publicity or discussion” and “never wanting to upset someone promising the moon” in these here RISC OS circles, but surely people are allowed to notice the obvious discrepancies here and share their concerns?

There has been many times people have been burnt by over-promises and under-delivery and perhaps a more cautious approach is needed by punters.

There are several people in the thread who correctly state “It’s not my job to tell others how to spend their money”, which I agree with. I can also state unequivocally that “I’m not pledging any money towards this”. Make up your own mind.

PS. The previous Kickstarter campaign mentioned me by name. I would like to make it clear that I have absolutely nothing to do with the Cloverleaf Project or Kickstarters.

Fri, 07 May 2021 23:46:09 -0000

Seems like something has overlapped and Paolo has similar arguments. ;-)

Fri, 07 May 2021 23:37:10 -0000

Given that the official Raspberry Pi SD card imager includes the ROOL distribution, surely itâ€−d make far more sense to focus efforts on improving that rather than creating other distributions.

There is exactly the flaw in your approach. The Cloverleave distribution is also based on the ROOL distribution because that is the basic operating system wirh the last improvements. There are differences in the bundled software and in the added “Clowerleaf tools and drivers”.
As Stefan wrote, everything that he can influence will be “open source”, so if it brings improvements, it will probably also be incorporated into the ROOL distribution.
And the Kickstarter wants to attract new users. A good bundle makes a lot of sense.
As an “old user” I have licenses for all programs I use and I know how to create RISC OS media that meet my needs.
Another problem is the same that I have. English is not my main language. Misunderstandings are likely. ;-)