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The beginning of the end?
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NiHaoMike:

--- Quote from: mendip_discovery on July 16, 2023, 01:38:08 pm ---they may have security reasons for not wanting one with WiFi even if it is disabled.

--- End quote ---
I'd be interested to know how one would attack a system through Wifi if the Wifi chip is disabled at the hardware level.
ejeffrey:

--- Quote from: NiHaoMike on July 16, 2023, 02:19:32 pm ---
--- Quote from: mendip_discovery on July 16, 2023, 01:38:08 pm ---they may have security reasons for not wanting one with WiFi even if it is disabled.

--- End quote ---
I'd be interested to know how one would attack a system through Wifi if the Wifi chip is disabled at the hardware level.

--- End quote ---

That's not how security audits work.  It's (mostly) not about whether you can attack it with the wifi chip disabled, it's about how can you assure that the wifi chip is disabled reliably and universally.  How do you make sure that it isn't enabled deliberately or accidentally for instance during a software upgrade, or malware.  You might say that if there is malware it's game over, but a device with only wired ethernet can be restricted by the network configuration and firewall to limit it's damage.  A wifi device can potentially attack other wifi enabled devices, or exfiltrate data bypassing the firewall.  And it's not about running a home network, it's about a company building this into a product that is going to be sold to customers and subject to a security analysis.  If you can say "our product doesn't have a wifi chip or antenna" you just cross a bunch of things off the list.  That doesn't mean you can't ship a device with wifi and a procedure to turn it off, but it can be a substantial advantage to avoid it if it isn't needed.
Smokey:

--- Quote from: gnuarm on July 16, 2023, 12:47:31 am ---...What are you complaining about, exactly?

--- End quote ---

I'm not complaining about anything.  I'm making a point about having a base product and manufacturing a lot of slight variants and the problems that path can bring with it.  You can say they "make it work" but they had parts shortages, so in a real way they didn't make it work.  Each one of those variants needs different parts.  That's more parts to stock (or be out of stock of).  They needed to stock 4 different RAM chips, and 3 different MMC chips.  Just the RAM and MMC makes 12 build variants with 7 different components right there.  Anyone that has ever done purchasing knows buying and strategically stocking 2 critical parts is significantly easier than buying and stocking 7 critical parts. 

Lets say the "No WIFI" and "No MMC" options are required for all the reasons you guys gave above.  I don't have a problem with any of that.  Based on the fact that people would still pay outrageous crazy inflated prices for these boards during the shortages means they could have easily had 1 option for RAM and 1 option for MMC (just using the biggest sizes for everything) and in a real way would have actually lowered their purchasing, production, and support costs by not having to deal with all those variants and critical components.

I would love to put some actual numbers to this stuff, but CM4 prices are all over the place right now and it looks like the RAM and MMC they used are still largely out of stock at distribution so their prices are all jacked up too.
SiliconWizard:

--- Quote from: mendip_discovery on July 16, 2023, 01:38:08 pm ---It is a shame that something created to help the younger generation learn about coding etc has been taken over by businesses that use them for their systems so when there were limits on parts the priority went to the business users.
--- End quote ---

Agreed, especially considering the RPi fundation is a fundation, non-profit org with specific goals which are definitely not helping commercial companies make a profit.
I don't know how they even get away with it, but that's complex legal shit.

Some will just tell you that the fundation needs to make enough revenue to keep operating and thus fullfilling its goals, and if that means selling most of their products to commercial companies, so be it.
Thing is, the decision is probably not just linked to the direct revenue they make by selling their products to commercial companies, but also by just keeping some of said companies happy, so they'll keep donating large amounts of money.

All large fundations have "nasty" links to for-profit businesses.
tom66:
The problem is companies are lazy and short-term cheap.  We had to pay a contractor to develop a Linux kernel for an embedded board (at the time no one at the company knew how to do it.) It cost a lot but allowed us to use a cheaper SoC. 

$30-50 per unit is expensive but if you think low volumes then it could be cheaper in the shorter term to buy the RPi with the prebuilt kernel and world of applications.  But once you get above about 100 units/month, or unless you have a REALLY good reason to use the RPi*, it's time to move on from it.

*Like camera/HDMI is essential.  Not just as a Wi-Fi network point.  You can do that with ESP2866, but some people haven't figured that out yet somehow.
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