Cloverleaf Campaign is Live

Not wanting to imply you are wrong about being banned by cloverleaf of their facebook group, BUT, for a while now ive being hearing rumours about facebook censoring comments and or blocking / banning people since the pandemic started. I didn’t believe any of this as it didn’t make sense to me, that is until now. Various comments ( unoffensive ) ive been making, albeit a little controversial maybe as I like to think there are 2 sides to every story, have been removed and the person or persons I was exchanging comments with I have been blocked from. I am fairly certain the persons involved haven’t blocked me since the content was all fairly ammicable. Could you be wrong about cloverleaf blocking you. I don’t to start a debate, was just curious.

I’m not really looking to repoen that debate again either but suffice it to say that based on the comments from the time and emails I’ve since received from Cloverleaf, I’m absolutely certain that I was not wrong about Cloverleaf having blocked me from the group. As I noted a few posts above, Cloverleaf emailed me to apologise for their overreacting/misunderstanding of the original posts and confirmed they’d removed the ban, which I also noted and acknowledged in an update to the TIB article. As I say, I don’t really plan to reopen that whole debate/mess, so I’ll leave it at that.

$29k of $61k goal with 5 days left.
It seems this project will not be successfull.
I have to say when I read the Kickstarter it was not clear what you were backing and the Kickstarter writer really needs to learn how to more succinctly tell the story. It was long winded and hard to peel out what the support was paying for. Not a great way to convince people to commit $$ IMO.

$29k of $61k goal with 5 days left.
It seems this project will not be successfull.

Well, IMHO this campaign was a success, in the sense that it has revealed a lot of very good information about the community and what the community really want.

I have to say when I read the Kickstarter it was not clear what you were backing and the Kickstarter writer really needs to learn how to more succinctly tell the story.

My understanding of Cloverleaf message was: “Cloverleaf wants to improve RISC OS to the point that it will look and feel like a modern desktop OS”.

Very succinct if you want, then their business model was “Cloverleaf is going to reach goals and make money (in order to survive) by selling hardware”.

Not sure what was complicated in the message, but ok everything is possible I guess.

What I see to be complicated was to achieve both their goals in the home user market. The campaign’s results clearly agree with my point.

I mean even with 45K GBP, it wouldn’t have been enough to pay for the amount of hours required to improve RISC OS while keep it compatible with old apps.

Selling hardware that is already available to the home user (and for less), in a moment that other new RISC OS hardware is also out and available to buy (4te’, RPi4, RPi 400 etc…) and using a campaign in a particularly complex year¹ and close to Christmas holidays² didn’t help.

Moreover, there is already a pre-packaged RISC OS distro rich of software and it’s free (RO Direct), and in a market as small as RISC OS home users, I think there wasn’t much in RO CL that created appealing for the community.

However, I hope it’s very clear now that RISC OS is not even close to the popularity of the Spectrum.

I would not take all of this in a negative way, plenty of things can be done to help RISC OS to improve and get more popular. I am sure Cloverleaf has learned their lessons and they are already working on better ideas to improve RISC OS.

Lots of things are happening already, 2020 has been a year full of new stuff coming up for RISC OS. The new OS release 5.28 seems really good so far, the new apps and software, new hardware, as well as more old faces have made it back and new people started to use RISC OS. One step at the time, things will get better and better, especially if we all try to do our bit to help.

¹ In 2020 many made less money due Covid lockdowns and also (only for Britain) the uncertainty of brexit

² Where people have to spend money to buy gifts

However, I hope it’s very clear now that RISC OS is not even close to the popularity of the Spectrum.

I can’t draw the same conclusion. ;) Perhaps the image from the Cloverleaf Kickstarter page titled “We have enjoyed” displaying two Sinclair machines and an A3000, might have played its part. Taking one particular perspective, that of an enthusiast, I found the image a bit strange considering the page is about RISC OS and as we all know its heritage is Acorn. I have wondered if a BBC Micro, an A5000, or even a RISC PC might have been a better choice.

Overall, apart from a few hiccups, I think what Stefan has done with Cloverleaf is worthy of praise.

Yeah. I’m sorry it looks like it will be unsuccessful. I was happy to support it, though personally I would have preferred a project more angled towards enthusing the FOSS community, building up the Risc OS reputation as a platform for developers interested in that sort of thing, but I get and respect that Stefan and co. have a different target audience in mind.

The campaign as stated is going to be unsuccessful, however he has demonstrated the ability to raise nearly €25K.
Perhaps a second campaign, with a smaller total and more modest “deliverables” is a way forward? Once that is seen to be making headway, a future further campaign?

In essence, break up what was supposed to be “all at once” and tackle it part by part, rather than asking for enough cash to buy a BMW M2… ;-)

Smart ForTwo :-)

I wouldn’t spend that kind of cash on something that notoriously unreliable!

BMW / Smart

Reach the destination a little more slowly is better than stop driving.
Currently we are rather crawling in comparsion to many other OS.

… notoriously unreliable!

I would say to much optimism (or a bit unrealism). But peoples can learn … I know not everybody.

Not sure what was complicated in the message,

TL;DR

Or, more verbosely, there was too much in the wording and too little of that conveyed information to the target “users”

I have wondered if a BBC Micro, an A5000, or even a RISC PC might have been a better choice.

I have wondered that too actually… I have to confess that !BeebEm running my old Olivetti PC 128S ROMS (Acorn Master Compact) on the RPi 400 it’s totally awesome and really cool for me… but again IMHO emulation is not the main goal to push for a backing campaign these days…

Perhaps a second campaign, with a smaller total and more modest “deliverables” is a way forward? Once that is seen to be making headway, a future further campaign?

Not a bad idea, but isn’t that what the bounties are for?

Not a bad idea, but isn’t that what the bounties are for?

We have the ROOL bounties. We have the stuff ROOL sells. We have RISC OS Developments. We have RISC OS Direct. We have RPCEmu “easy starter” packages. We have the hardware CJE and R-Comp and RISCOSbits and whoever is selling.

The Cloverleaf Kickstarter tries to be everything to everyone: develop RISC OS itself. Develop applications for RISC OS. Develop hardware for RISC OS. Provide a RISC OS distribution. Cater for the Retro geeks. Appeal to new users who never heard of RISC OS. Appeal to existing RISC OS users. Get the T-Shirt. Oh, and also protect the environment and save the world.

I don’t think it is possible to send a clear message about what you want to achieve if you want to achieve a thousand small and sometimes orthogonal goals. Want to see RISC OS developed further? Why not support a ROOL bounty instead, or ask RISC OS Developments? Want to have hardware running RISC OS? Why not buy a Pi or something from CJE, R-Comp or RISCOSbits?

I wrote about the Cloverleaf Kickstarter and its fundamental communication problem before: http://riscosblog.huber-net.de/2020/11/cloverleaf-kickstarter-gestartet/

Don’t get me wrong: I think Kickstarter might be a good approach. But at the end of the day, trying to collect 50000€ funding with a first-time project in a market that is commercially nearly dead for the last 20 years is probably just too ambitious. The existing community has very fragmented interests, and the rest of the world just does not care.

Don’t get me wrong: I think Kickstarter might be a good approach.

It is a good approach and I’m sure that Stefan will have learnt alot, including how to handle, simple questions (rhetorical questions).

There’s an old saying “Nothing ventured, nothing gained.”

@ Steffen Huber

I am with you man. I also backed the Cloverleaf campaign because the 14" laptop is actually a really good device (I have it and use it with Linux) and would be awesome with RISC OS, but this is just my opinion.

I wrote about the Cloverleaf Kickstarter and its fundamental communication problem before:

Which is in German unfortunately…

Good to hear that the 14" laptop is worth having as its why I also backed the Coverleaf campaign. :)

@ Steve Pampling

Or, more verbosely, there was too much in the wording and too little of that conveyed information to the target “users”

True…

Which is in German unfortunately…

People keep telling me that Google Translate will convert it into mostly readable and perhaps even understandable English. To me, it just shows the limits of AI…

To me, it just shows the limits of AI…

As it is so far, anyway. German to English isn’t too bad, but the quality of Googletranslate varies a lot from language pair to language pair, and can be completely useless.

mostly readable and perhaps even understandable English

Ah, but is it correct English?

For a long time, Google woulf translate constructs like “c’est pas bon” as “that’s good”. That’s because it isn’t a technically valid construct – a “pas” needs a “ne” in some form, something like “ce n’est pas bon”? But, there’s a difference between what is good proper French (or any other language), and that which is encountered in reality.

There’s a big difference between “it’s good” and “it’s not good”.

I also have a photo on my blog somewhere where Google translated kilometres into miles, which made no sense as the number wasn’t changed.

It still doesn’t understand the contradictory expression “pas terrible” (which means terrible).

And, I think somebody has been trolling Translate, as it keeps asking if when I write “n’est”, did I mean “ñ’est”.What? ‘n’ with a tilde? That’s Spanish!

Good to hear that the 14" laptop is worth having

My understanding of the huge wall of text is that the laptop (which was quite sweet) would not actually be supplied with a functional version RISC OS, that would be “to come” (when ported to the Rockchip devices). Is this correct, or has it already been ported?

My understanding of the huge wall of text is that the laptop (which was quite sweet) would not actually be supplied with a functional version RISC OS, that would be “to come” (when ported to the Rockchip devices). Is this correct, or has it already been ported?

AFAIAA, no, it hasn’t been ported. I took a brief look at the chip’s PRM and very quickly decided that the registers bore no resemblance to any other that RO has been ported to, therefore it would require an all-new HAL.

If anyone wants to try writing a HAL in C, this would appear to be an ideal opportunity or test bed.

But anyone can ask Stefan on ChatCube, and get information from the impeccable source.

Is this correct, or has it already been ported?

I haven’t looked for a while now, but #Update2 (November 2020) on the Kickstarter page has a couple of videos of RISC OS running on a Pinebook Pro. I understand its work in progress.

@ DabidS

However, I hope it’s very clear now that RISC OS is not even close to the popularity of the Spectrum.

Interesting choice of comparison.

There have been in the last few months multiple people referring to the huge success of the ZX Spectrum Next campaigns and suggesting it would have been possible for RISC OS to receive a similar success. My point has been (in multiple occasions) that the situation with RISC OS (in the matter of nostalgia) is completely different from the Speccy.

The Speccy was extremely popular back in the days due the very low price, tons of games and also the existence of clones, while Acorn Archimedes were quite expensive machines for the masses (included quite a few previous BBC Micro owners), not thousands of games were made/ported to Archie and never had clones either.

So, right now there are way less people desiring a brand new RISC OS computer compared to the Spectrum retro scene. Also let’s not forget that the ZX Spectrum brand has become a fashion trend like the Atari brand and that helped a lot to resonate the ZX Spectrum Next campaigns.

On top of that the spectrum next is an impressive evolution of the Spectrum architecture which definitely IS exciting and it has a really really good design and historical names behind it.

And finally RISC OS has already plenty of new computers actually quite performing as well! Especially the RPi 400 (for the price and the clock one can set it to, is an impressive offer).

What of a BBC Micro as a comparison?

For the BBC Micro scene (I follow it as well, although if my personal choice is limited to the BBC Master Compact, for historical reasons), it’s not a bad idea, but what exactly should RISC OS offer to a Beeb passionate?

Sure there are a lot of similarities, but there are also a lot of differences… In primis the absence of the 6502, which on RISC OS means emulation. So what would be the offer? Run RISC OS with BeebEm or !65Host? Why would they have to back a campaign for this when they can buy the cheapest RPi and run everything for free on it and still have impressive performance compared to the original Beeb?

Don’t get me wrong, I love to bits !BeebEm (it also can run the original ROMs for the Olivetti Prodest PC128S), so I run BeebEm on all my RISC OS computers, but not sure this would have made any difference (at least for me) in terms of backing Cloverleaf.

In the other end, I love RISC OS too, and that PineBook Pro laptop with RISC OS on it’s just woooow (and that’s what I backed on the campaign).

IMHO RISC OS now has a lot of potentials in the IoT and embedded markets if the missing bits gets developed. This is a real business opportunity, not crumbles. Then, on top of that, sure it can be improved to offer better and better Desktop experience over time (on this Rick is totally right when he suggests a more modest offer of features that can be delivered etc.). As always just my 0.5c.

AFAIAA, no, it hasn’t been ported. I took a brief look at the chip’s PRM and very quickly decided that the registers bore no resemblance to any other that RO has been ported to, therefore it would require an all-new HAL.

RISC OS runs on Rockchip devices. I did a small exercise with RK3288 a couple of years ago. The RK3399 port progresses nicely , but the developers (including myself) working on it also have other projects.
The Pine64 Pinebook Pro and RockPro64 is supported. I think that other RK3399 devices also will work.

It will happen sooner or later.

RISC OS runs on Rockchip devices. I did a small exercise with RK3288 a couple of years ago. The RK3399 port progresses nicely , but the developers (including myself) working on it also have other projects. The Pine64 Pinebook Pro and RockPro64 is supported. I think that other RK3399 devices also will work.

My apologies. It’s one of those cases where I’m delighted to be shown to be wrong.