Points to ponder Re: Showstoppers for RPI3

[bob prohaska]

On Fri, Feb 28, 2020 at 08:53:22AM -0700, Ian Lepore wrote:
> On Fri, 2020-02-28 at 11:03 +0000, Greg V wrote:
> > 
> > Feb 28, 2020 4:09:43 AM bob prohaska :
> > 
> > > In a thread entitled "how to get freebsd on a new board?" it's
> > > suggested that a port of FreeBSD to a new platform would cost
> > > $20-50K, presumably with manufacturer support. Let's suppose
> > > it'll cost $100K if the manufacturer won't help.
> > 
> > It's funny to hear massive cost estimates for something that's been
> > hobbyist/volunteer work a lot of the time :)
> > 
> 
> It may not always be as "hobbyist" as you think.  I put a lot of hours
> (er, months) into helping get freebsd running on armv6/v7 hardware in
> general and on imx6 in particular.  The company I contract to paid in
> the $50-100k range for my time in doing so.  I easily spent that many
> more hours of my own time working on it that I didn't bill them for, so
> all in all it worked out to be about half-hobbyist. :)  And most of
> what I do in ongoing freebsd work now is pure hobbyist, except for the
> rare occasions when we start using some new i2c chip or something at
> $work that needs a driver written.
> 

This is a point worth emphasizing. The work environment has changed 
profoundly since FreeBSD's beginnings. Most management is far less
tolerant of employee "distraction" and far better able to track it. 
Academics had it better, but even that environment is tighter now. 

I've added a few observations to
http://www.zefox.net/~fbsd/showstoppers
and would be grateful if those closer to the project would
correct any errors or serious omissions. My vantage point
was relatively early, but also quite distant. 

Thanks for replying!

bob prohaska

> 
>