How Do We Decide?

[renegadechic]

Hmm if, as MWeston's post suggests, there will be little to no time difference between the first 100 and the rest, then the testing seems fairly meaningless and therefore the queue should proceed in order. If the 100 units were tested and that testing reflected on what went on the rest then that would be no problem, however it looks like we will all just be getting the same units. In that case, roll them out and let all 4000 of us give our feedback. In many ways the whole idea of a separate 100 seems to have been rather jumping the gun.

Also, I think that the units for review to various press should be at the end of the batches or even somewhere between batch one and two so that it will benefit from batch one's feedback and also because it will be advertising for future sales and should coincide with the availability of the next batch rather than simply glorifying what the converted will already have. Still, I cannot wait for the pure joy of the Pandora no longer being considered vapour to the masses.

 

[hedwards]

I guess I just don't understand why this is even an issue. Correct me if I'm wrong on the following points:

1) Preorders were taken on a first-come-first-serve understanding.

There's disagreement about what that means. Rather than the original meaning of if you're not one of the first several thousand you don't get one, people have decided that since they removed the cap that it must mean that it's the order in which they'll be filled.

Which is a stretch, there was some talk in, I think October or so, about that, but at a similar time there was also talk about those that paid via bank transfer getting bumped so that they could have the funds to finish the orders. I'm not personally sure where people got the idea that que placement was the fixed contractual obligation from. I assume that they weren't following things closely during the first few months.

 

[gilesjuk]

If I've learned anything when creating software it is that you can tweak and improve it lots until you are happy with it and still have problems when the end user gets hold of it. A wider audience can provide valuable feedback.

I realise the team are trying to create the perfect device, but I truly hope they aren't concentrating so much on the hardware (casing, nubs and controls) and neglecting the software side of things.

 

[Monk]

I guess I just don't understand why this is even an issue. Correct me if I'm wrong on the following points:

1) Preorders were taken on a first-come-first-serve understanding.

There's disagreement about what that means. Rather than the original meaning of if you're not one of the first several thousand you don't get one, people have decided that since they removed the cap that it must mean that it's the order in which they'll be filled.

I don't see why there should be any ambiguity on the meaning of "first come first served" as it is an extremely common and well-understood phrase in England. To whit, from:

http://en.wikipedia....e,_first-served

we have:

First-come, first-served (sometimes first-in, first-served, first-come, first choice or simply FCFS) is a service policy where by the requests of customers or clients are attended to in the order that they arrived, without other biases or preferences. The policy can be employed when processing sales orders, in determining restaurant seating, or on a taxi stand, for example.Festival seating (also known as general seating and stadium seating) is seating done on a FCFS basis.

While use of Wikipedia is often criticised on the basis that it's definitions are open to entry and therefore unreliable, I am not relying here on the Wiki providing me with the definition, just with the clarity of the description to illustrate the definition as I already knew it.

As a programmer, Craig should be very familiar with the idea not just from the general English usage, but also from using FIFO buffers which use essentially the same concept.

 

[kattle87]

Thank for the update... but now I really REGRET taking a preorder.
We were either given contradictory informations, or we were given false hopes.
If creating the molds will need 45 days, well, that means that the whole "just little tweaks are needed, it won't take that long since the majority of the work is already done" was plain false. And this makes my trust towards the project really little. If you can't tell us the truth, please avoid speaking.
Sorry for the rant but similar stuff is happening WAY too frequently.

 

[gruso]

If creating the molds will need 45 days, well, that means that the whole "just little tweaks are needed, it won't take that long since the majority of the work is already done" was plain false.

This fact has never been hidden. It's been on the roadmap for months! Waiting for mould creation to start has been the main frustration this year, and central to the whole "two months" thing.

I'm not saying there hasn't been some false hope dished out over the year, but I thought this was something everyone knew.

 

[jlepley]

Well, if there isn't going to be any kind of major delay after the first 100 ship, then there's no point in giving to just devs early on. I'm changing my vote to first in the queue.

 

[javaJake]

It's finally clicked for me: no one really knows what the timetable looks like. All these predictions (even MWeston's) are totally pulled out of a hat, and will, without exception, be changed. The very fact that the people in OpenPandora Inc. have never done anything like this before should raise a little warning flag when they start putting out predictions.

This whole thing gets so complex, it makes my head spin a little. On the one hand, kettle87 is right, partially. Craigix sometimes makes promises he can't fulfill. On the other hand, we can (should? ) be forgiving when we realize where Craigix is coming from. In this instance, if Craigix promises first come first serve, that's how it ought to be. In other instances (like predictions), it always ought to be read with a disclaimer attached to the bottom, unless it's explicitly guaranteed. (Working completely from memory, there have been times when Craigix and/or Co. have promised something and it hasn't come. That is very frustrating.)

So, to sum it up: no one's 100% right here. We ought not to take as scientific law predictions Craigix or others make, like MWeston's above. Craigix ought not to promise things he can't/won't fulfill, like first come first serve.

 

[greendots]

What ever happened to that story that Craig was supposed to be writing detailing the pitfalls and problems along the way? It wasn't that little pocket gaming article was it? I also don't see how it could take so long to make another video. There's been time to work on Wizzley over the last couple months. I can't help but think Icontrolpad slowed down pandora too. Its also not very inspiring to see DaveC working on wiz stuff when the pandora is so far over due. I don't blame DaveC (at all)... he's not being paid for this as far as I can tell; But maybe if he was, the case would be done by now.

I don't know about everyone else but I was expecting no delays whatsoever when I pre-ordered. I had been following pandora's development since its inception and Craig was always adamant about not creating the same situation the Game Park did when it took pre-orders and had their customers wait for months.

 

[hedwards]

While use of Wikipedia is often criticised on the basis that it's definitions are open to entry and therefore unreliable, I am not relying here on the Wiki providing me with the definition, just with the clarity of the description to illustrate the definition as I already knew it.

There's your problem. You're using ambiguous language without acknowledging it as such, or accounting for it, it's not really the basis for a sound argument there.

Maybe it's because I'm pretty good with formal logic and debate, but come on, you can't just arbitrarily make this stuff up and expect it to apply. The first come first served was to indicate that they wouldn't artificially block people from ordering or reserve units for people that didn't make it into the batch. The act of serving in the context was being provided with a unit. And it ended up being a moot point when they later decided not to decline anybody that pre-ordered by the deadline. At the time of pre-ordering the assumption was that they were going to be going out so quickly that it was unlikely that they'd be able to ensure that level of granularity and for a time there was the idea floating around of whether to ship all at once or as they were done. Those towards the end agreed to the idea that they should be shipped more or less as they were done.

It was made perfectly clear over 6 months ago that the place in cue was not chained to the order in which the units were being shipped. In fact one of the possible ways was going to be those that paid by bank transfer or check first followed by those that wanted to pay via credit card later on. And after that became clear we've all had our chance to decline and give up our unit.

At the end of the day, it still is a matter of stubbornness and epenis more than anything else, the lack of strict ordering is hardly just now being brought up, and whining about it now is kind of imamture.

 

[danielliu88888]

What ever happened to that story that Craig was supposed to be writing detailing the pitfalls and problems along the way? It wasn't that little pocket gaming article was it? I also don't see how it could take so long to make another video. There's been time to work on Wizzley over the last couple months. I can't help but think Icontrolpad slowed down pandora too. Its also not very inspiring to see DaveC working on wiz stuff when the pandora is so far over due. I don't blame DaveC (at all)... he's not being paid for this as far as I can tell; But maybe if he was, the case would be done by now.

I don't know about everyone else but I was expecting no delays whatsoever when I pre-ordered. I had been following pandora's development since its inception and Craig was always adamant about not creating the same situation the Game Park did when it took pre-orders and had their customers wait for months.

the story isn't finished yet. it's not taking a long time to make the video, he just doesn't have time to work on it. i don't think he's been working on icontrolpad for a while either. maybe DaveC would work faster if he was being paid, maybe not, but i don't think the team has any money to spare right now. i was expecting the pandora too around christmas 2008, but we all know that none of us could have predicted all of the bad luck that has happened along the way.

 

[CCmachined]

soo... it's... two months... again. http://whenisthepandoracoming.wut.bz/ is never wrong.

Haha! I wondered what that site was for. I refresh, and see that it just adds two months... excellent XD

 

[Monk]

While use of Wikipedia is often criticised on the basis that it's definitions are open to entry and therefore unreliable, I am not relying here on the Wiki providing me with the definition, just with the clarity of the description to illustrate the definition as I already knew it.

There's your problem. You're using ambiguous language without acknowledging it as such, or accounting for it, it's not really the basis for a sound argument there.

Maybe it's because I'm pretty good with formal logic and debate, but come on, you can't just arbitrarily make this stuff up and expect it to apply.

Err, no... I'm pretty much saying that the meaning of "first come first served" is not ambiguous, and giving a reasonably clear definition without resorting to my own words - how far from "making it up" can I possibly be here? If anyone is making stuff up and being unclear, it'd be the person claiming to be good at formal logic and debate then promptly fluffing it by doing things like guessing at the reasoning/objectives behind statements made by others and changing the meaning of a common phrase to accomodate those assumptions rather than dealing purely with what is said.

 

[kattle87]

It's finally clicked for me: no one really knows what the timetable looks like. All these predictions (even MWeston's) are totally pulled out of a hat, and will, without exception, be changed.
[...]
So, to sum it up: no one's 100% right here. We ought not to take as scientific law predictions Craigix or others make, like MWeston's above. Craigix ought not to promise things he can't/won't fulfill, like first come first serve.

Agreed, and, well... I can tell you they are giving wrong predictions not only to us (on the forums), but to anyone out there (including people wanting to become resellers)
So yeah it's just them pulling those out of a hat. and I know I should behave not like a child but still this makes me unhappy

 

[Adventus]

The major point, that many seem to be missing, for sending out to developers first is that it improves the relationship between the developers and the OpenPandora project as a whole. Its a gesture of good will. Even if they don't achieve a lot in first few weeks, it will set a precedent that may lead to larger things. This is important for an Open Source device, i dont think the GP2X would have been nearly as big if it wasn't for the suppliers making up for what GPH couldn't / refused to provide. It is after all what differentiated the PSP community from the GP2X for many of us.

I'm not saying I'm 100% for developers (or even 50%), obviously i'm biased, just something to consider.

 

[Monk]

The major point, that many seem to be missing, for sending out to developers first is that it improves the relationship between the developers and the OpenPandora project as a whole. Its a gesture of good will. Even if they don't achieve a lot in first few weeks, it will set a precedent that may lead to larger things. This is important for an Open Source device, i dont think the GP2X would have been nearly as big if it wasn't for the suppliers making up for what GPH couldn't / refused to provide. It is after all what differentiated the PSP community from the GP2X for many of us.

I'm not saying I'm 100% for developers (or even 50%), obviously i'm biased, just something to consider.

Makes sense - if you're going to rely on (in effect) unpaid business partners to build the market for you, it's a good idea to give them SOMETHING as a sweetener, even if it's only "priority".

In July 2008, however, a bunch of pre-paid customers who expected their products last year might feel they are owed a little priority too. I certainly read that in some posts, IMHO, and as much as the OpenPandora project would suffer from poor relations with third-party devs, the paying customers are also a fairly important part of the whole siuation.

As for bias - aren't we ALL biased? Never trust anyone who says they aren't! declaring a bias is far more unbiased (IMHO) than pretending perfect neutrality

 

[Asmo]

The major point, that many seem to be missing, for sending out to developers first is that it improves the relationship between the developers and the OpenPandora project as a whole. Its a gesture of good will.

Maybe, but there was also a Dev Fund contribution for pre-emptive displays of gratitude.

 

[Adventus]

In July 2008, however, a bunch of pre-paid customers who expected their products last year might feel they are owed a little priority too. I certainly read that in some posts, IMHO, and as much as the OpenPandora project would suffer from poor relations with third-party devs, the paying customers are also a fairly important part of the whole siuation.

To clarify, The Devs I'm referring to are paying customers. I don't expect anyone, beyond the most core developers (which already have hardware), to get them for free (at this stage).

Maybe, but there was also a Dev Fund contribution for pre-emptive displays of gratitude.

I would suspect most of that will not come into circulation until a later date, once some major projects have been completed. Not to say it isn't appreciated.

 

[piercer]

This is all a bit of a pointless discussion isn't it?

When will it sink in that this thing will never ever be released - nobody is ever going to get one.

All the evidence points to the fact that the Pandora team are not capable of producing a project of this nature. Even In this thread MWeston admits that they can't get the case right. They have continually lied about their progress with this project - even today on the home page (which hardly ever gets updated) they state that the mould will take 30-35 days, but if you read this thread its 45 days.

If by some miracle they should manage to manufacture a few, then it will be in another year or two and by that time it will be really outdated, LOL.

Face reality guys.

It will always be 2 months away...

 

[bzar]

^ Bah, humbug!