Comment by ahepp
19 days ago
Is there any reliable source for this? It's an interesting claim, but I'm skeptical because I don't think anyone had any idea what a huge success RPi would be. The idea that it was all a monopoly play by Broadcom is something that I'd need more evidence to believe.
It's not a monopoly play by broadcom originally. It was a way to get rid of excess stock of a chip that was going obsolete (without just tossing them) while doing something good for computer engineering education. I don't think anyone expected this to get so big.
Subsequent chips were specially made for the Pi by broadcom, and supposedly they didn't have as large of margins as other customers.
Is there evidence that Broadcom sold those chips to the foundation for less than their own cost? That’s the claim I find a little strong. And I do understand that undercutting other nonprofit or small vendors might also be considered bad behavior, but it never sounded like there was a lot of demand for those particular chips (which were already on the edge of obsolescence, and were even in the process of being abandoned by Debian).
> Is there evidence that Broadcom sold those chips to the foundation for less than their own cost? That’s the claim I find a little strong.
For me, its beaten by the more effective claim Broadcom sold it /at/ cost.
I had very much the same feeling. Not because Broadcom are nice guys, but because it just doesn't sync with what everyone thought they knew at the time.
> it just doesn't sync with what everyone thought they knew at the time.
Such as?