
Ubuntu Edge funding level over time - rcaught
http://movebits.net/2013/07/23/ubuntu-edge-funding-level/
======
pavs
Most of you guys are missing the point, this is not your premium device of an
existing manufacturer, so its moot to compare prices with nexus 4, s4, or any
other premium device.

This is similar (but definitely not same) to the idea of supporting tesla by
buying their very expensive models when they first came out. Those people who
paid premium price for their car, because they were supportive to the idea of
Tesla's vision of clean electric cars. Because of these early adopters, tesla
today exists as a company and has a product.

While Ubuntu Edge is not as revolutionary as Tesla, it has some unique ideas,
made by a company that is loved by most of Open Source and Linux community. By
buying an comparably expensive device, you are supporting open source platform
and giving chance for another serious option besides the present duopoly.

Whether you agree with this vision or not is a different story, whether you
think one open source option (Android) is enough is another story. But if you
are comparing Edge with current mainstream device with price and feature, then
this device is clearly not meant for you, but if you are supporting this
device with your money because of philosophical reasons, then this device is
for you, and you are the type people Ubuntu is asking for support.

~~~
sho_hn
> made by a company that is loved by most of Open Source and Linux community.

I believe this to be a false statement. A lot of the open source and Linux
community is in fact quite unhappy with Canonical, over things like their
shoddy governance of projects they partnered with others on, unreasonable and
sudden copyright assignment requirements and contracts, propagandistic and
dishonestly comparative PR practices and willfully bringing about tech stack
fragmentation. Irregardless of whether they manage to provide value to their
users: A fair and reliable member of the greater community they have most
certainly not been.

~~~
oblique63
> _Irregardless of whether they manage to provide value to their users: A fair
> and reliable member of the greater community they have most certainly not
> been._

Yeah, I think it's good to explicitly separate the idea of the linux
_developer_ community from the linux _user_ community. Because as you
mentioned, end users do seem to like the value ubuntu brings to them. And I
agree that 'bringing users value' is totally orthogonal to the company being a
"good" one (case in point: apple).

That being said, how is what Canonical's done in any way _not an improvement_
from the likes of the status quo (i.e. google/microsoft/apple)? From what I
see, Canonical might not be totally ideal, but certainly a step up from
apple/microsoft, so why all the strong opposition? I know we all love radical
idealistic revolutions, but in reality, most change happens over the course of
several baby steps, and Ubuntu seems like the best baby step we have the
option to embrace right now, so it's frustrating to see the linux community
self-sabotage itself over things that are smaller than the greater cause of
'open-ness'.

However, I and many other content ubuntu users are not linux devs, so it's
possible that the arguments against Canonical just haven't been articulated in
a way that would make the consequences of their actions seem substantially
significant from the user's perspective. I mean, I understand the risk of
fragmentation and all that, but do I think that trumps the importance of
furthering OSS? No...

~~~
ansimionescu
I'm going to act the fool a bit here and ask why is Apple not a "good"
company? What's your definition of that and can you give some examples?

~~~
oblique63
This is all purely my own opinion of course (and you’re free to disagree), but
it was based on the parent comment's branding of Canonical as a dubious
company on ethical grounds when he mentioned fragmentation / community
cooperation / governance / propaganda / dishonesty / etc. Apple is a great
company if the metrics you're looking at are the concrete financial/economic
ones, but “ethically”? I’m not a fan.

Over the years the list has become much too large for me to even remember it
all personally, but some concrete examples of this off the top of my head
would be:

A) how the company is structured and how it views its employees [1],

B) general overly intense secrecy (read: proprietary mindset) _everywhere_

C) rejecting apps without explanation and creating their own versions [2]

D) inconsistent app review process [3]

E) refusal to give to charity during the entirety of steve jobs’ run

F) patent abuse [4]

G) needless limits on products you supposedly "own" (e.g. ipad syncing being
limited to 1 computer)

H) tracking users' locations without their knowledge/consent [5]

I) and most recently, the unusually long silence and delay after having a
security breach in their developer portal (which I was a member of for some
past work, believe it or not)

[There’s also the whole labor situation in china, but I don’t believe apple’s
uniquely at fault there]

This is all fairly consistent behaviour, and it exhibits ‘personality’ traits
that mirror those of an ultra-proprietary narcissist (read: steve jobs). None
of this should be earth shattering to anybody, it’s always been out there in
plain view. The only thing one could really disagree with is in how to react
to it. Most people don’t care as they don’t see it affecting them, and that’s
cool. But I do see how it can affect me, as it has already bitten me multiple
times in the past, so I’m not neutral to it anymore. And I have a feeling that
a lot of the people that are pro-linux/ubuntu/OSS have similar sentiments.

Don't get me wrong though, from the user’s perspective Apple does the whole
customer satisfaction facade amazingly well (and they deserve credit for it),
but that's not really an ethical thing when it's so obviously in their best
economic interest to do that kind of stuff anyway (which is why I think more
companies should follow it). And by "that kind of stuff", I mean those stories
you always hear about people taking in their totally-burnt-to-a-crisp 9yr old
macbooks into a genius bar, and Apple 'super generously' gives them a brand
new fully-upgraded macbook pro with a free iphone to compensate, no questions
asked. Sure that's a bit of an exaggerated scenario, but you can see how that
would look amazing from the consumer perspective. The issue is that it’s
purely a tactic to keep you loyal and faithful to the [proprietary] Apple
brand. There was a study somewhere about hotel guests being significantly more
loyal and likely to return to the same hotel chain after they've had a bad
experience that was handled well by the hotel they were staying in -- same
deal here. Apple had the marketing brilliance to intentionally craft that
notorious cult-following mentality in its fans.

On it's own, that really isn't all that negative though. The problem is, that
Apple is clearly (IMO) using it to push a dubious proprietary agenda that goes
against almost everything OSS stands for[6], thus amplifying the influence of
their questionable views exponentially. That's why something as benign as not
having removable batteries on their devices is a lot more worrisome coming
from Apple (if you're invested in their ecosystem). That design choice carries
no ethical significance on it's own, but if the actor implementing it has a
history of dubious motives, you better believe the significance of the move is
no longer null, because it is but a vehicle to convey their greater
intentions. This Edge phone for example doesn't look to have a removable
battery either, but Canonical is not generally known for being closed about
things, so such a design decision wouldn't worry me too much about investing
in their platform.

The important thing to realize is that when you vote with your wallet, you're
voting on more than just 'features', and these other less-visible aspects can
and will affect you at some point.

I’m sure this rant is gonna get nit-picked and analyzed to hell, possibly
missing the forest for the trees and all that, but it is a large reason why I
_don’t_ find Canonical to be a bad option to support -- and that’s really the
main issue here.

[1] The book ‘Inside Apple’ is a really good read if you’re interested to know
what it’s like in there:
[http://amzn.com/B00C2IFS3W](http://amzn.com/B00C2IFS3W)

[2] Two examples here: [https://medium.com/wwdc-round-
up/253aed27a455](https://medium.com/wwdc-round-up/253aed27a455) and
[http://www.dailytech.com/Apple+Accused+of+Ripping+Off+Develo...](http://www.dailytech.com/Apple+Accused+of+Ripping+Off+Developers+Rejected+WiFi+Sync+App/article21871.htm)

[3] [http://techcrunch.com/2012/04/17/ikamasutra-a-tale-of-sex-
lo...](http://techcrunch.com/2012/04/17/ikamasutra-a-tale-of-sex-love-and-
apple-app-store-rejection/)

[4] [http://gizmodo.com/5950690/apples-latest-slide+to+unlock-
pat...](http://gizmodo.com/5950690/apples-latest-slide+to+unlock-patent-
basically-prevents-other-phones-from-dragging-anything-around-a-lock-screen)

[5] [http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/apr/20/iphone-
trac...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/apr/20/iphone-tracking-
prompts-privacy-fears)

[6] I’m aware that they do have lots of OSS projects of their own,
www.apple.com/opensource/ is always the first thing that’s pointed out to me
when I go on an anti-apple rant. My point is that the company’s overall
intentions aren’t aligned with that of the FLOSS community, and that those
dubious intentions can and will bite a large segment of consumers in the ass
at some point.

------
cs702
SUGGESTION: please show the rate at which the total is growing, e.g., in
dollars/minute, and compare that to the rate necessary to reach the
fundraising goal. Otherwise, it's hard to see whether the total is growing at
a sufficiently fast rate just by looking at that chart.

For example, as I write this, the campaign must raise an additional $28.5
million over the next 30 days, equal to under $40,000/hour or around
$660/minute. So right now it would be helpful to see if the total is growing
by at least $660/minute.

~~~
icegreentea
Labelling the x-axis would also be kind of useful. And what does the note in
the legend mean? "first day @ 12p.m. curve flatlines after $600 - deal ends"?

~~~
Aaronneyer
The chart starts at 12pm on the first day, because thats when the author
started grabbing information..

If you look on the curve, you can see that at $3.2 million, the curve kind of
flat lines, or at least levels out a bit. This is when they ran out of the
5,000 phones they were offering at $600.

~~~
gamerDude
Because we only have one day it is hard to tell, but when they hit 3.2 Million
it was also Midnight, so less people may have been active.

Perhaps after work hours funding will increase in pace again.

------
thezilch
So, can we expect the funding to fail? Do we have similar charts for other
like fundings?

Personally, even the $600 watermark is too high. Perhaps I and my colleagues
are not the right market, but either

* we've been fooled by prices on Google's Nexus devices

* the extra power doesn't justify the cost or isn't necessary for our needs

* we might as well get Lenovos -- half our guys have a history of dropping their phones or otherwise damaging their phone

At the end of the day, I connect to numerous remote hosts to get work done,
which negates the purpose if I just need a shell and terminal multiplex and
browser to run on my localhost. I'm not going to want to run my RDB, search
DB, KV store, cache store, messaging bus, etc from that phone. The specs are
nice, for a phone, but it's not a workstation.

~~~
jmathai
> So, can we expect the funding to fail?

I don't think so. This target for this crowdfunding project is an order of
magnitude larger than the infamous Pebble watch.

I'm not sure we can apply the same rules. On one hand I think it will be even
harder to reach the goal. But on the other hand I think the sheer audacity and
scope might have some unexpected benefits.

Nonetheless, I'd say in the end we'll consider it a successful fundraising
campaign. Even if the goal isn't met and the phone never gets created what's
happened so far proves that there's an opportunity for Ubuntu to find a niche
that's underserved with their vision of convergence.

------
doe88
It was really a bad move to have created the $800 level without adding
anything to the $600 package. Even adding only a small thing would certainly
have improved the funding. Another factor is that in lot of minds $600 is the
price point for high ends smartphones, pricing above is really really risked.

~~~
lipanski
35 minutes ago they updated the perk list with the "double edge": two ubuntu
edge devices for $1400. Stil a better bargain than one piece at $830. I do
think that when you're going for this kind of money on a crowdfunding website
you kind of know what you're doing. The update also states that they'll be
having plenty of other updates during the next weeks.

No matter how it ends, this is going to be a really interesting experiment for
the marketing guys at Canonical and for crowdfunding in general.

~~~
nalsh
They have to continue to do things like this if they want to stay in the
public consciousness for the next month. Should be interesting to watch.

------
JDShu
I have a similar script running and observed the same thing. Yesterday I
thought that they were well on track towards making the goal, but it seems
that the one day only deal heavily skewed pledges towards the first day
compared to the average crowdfunded project:

[http://www.kickstarter.com/blog/trends-in-pricing-and-
durati...](http://www.kickstarter.com/blog/trends-in-pricing-and-duration)

Based on the %time vs %backing chart, the second day usually secures around
the same amount of funding as the first day. However in the case of the Ubuntu
Edge, it received above average percentage backing on the first day, but has
already hit the trough.

~~~
twoodfin
The $600 vs. $830 funding levels seem like a really bad move. It gave their
most enthusiastic supporters a chance to give them _less_ money, which is the
opposite of what you'd typically want. And for the next month, everyone who
visits the project will feel like they're getting screwed out of $230 by not
having been one of the early funders.

~~~
josh2600
Personally, I don't think Ubuntu actually wants the $32M.

Remember, Mark specifically says that most manufacturers won't take you
seriously unless you order 100,000 units. At $600 per phone, that's only 53k
units (the volumes look worse at $830 per phone). __They can 't actually
manufacture the phone as described for $32M. __

So, this is, IMHO, a publicity stunt intended to get carriers interested in
Ubuntu phone, and it probably was quite successful.

~~~
storborg
$600 per phone is the price, not the manufacturing cost.

~~~
josh2600
Chances are, with a volume of less than 100k units, and with the Bill of
Materials they're generating, I would be surprised if the cost of the phone
were under $600. It's possible, but unlikely.

I would wager that they can't even buy RAM directly from Samsung without an
order over 100k units.

So yeah, maybe $600 per phone is high, but maybe not. They're talking about a
serious bill of materials, and although they're economizing on the CMOS and
the LCD for the screen, I don't think that will reduce the cost much. The
sapphire screen and the single-cut shell are both significant cost structures.

It's fun to argue about unknowable things, but given that (I assume) neither
of us works for Canonical, I think the answer is probably that you're right.
It would be hard for that phone to cost $600, but it won't be cheap.

------
velodrome
I calculated the average rate after current dropoff. The funding will fail and
the total will be roughly around $20 million dollars. Still, that is quite a
bit of money and at least some sort of validation.

They should have kept it at $600 and increased the total needed for the
project.

Some quick calculations:

($3476017 - $3180762) / 12 hours = $24605 / hour

$3180762 + $24605 / hour * (30 days * 24 hours / day) = $20,896,062

~~~
skriticos2
You do realize that this makes every statistician cringe? Your sample size for
calculation is too small to base any kind of reliable projections on it making
this a pure guess.

~~~
velodrome
Of course. There is so little data to work with many assumptions. This is why
I said it was a quick calculation.

If you can do better, please share :P Unfortunately, I just don't have the
time.

Besides, the only conclusion that can be drawn at this time is that this is
going to be a one of the largest kickstarter-style funding efforts ever.

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8Ezwg5LKd4](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8Ezwg5LKd4)

~~~
backprojection
Yes, if we had this kind of data for several campaigns, then you could compute
a (normalized) <% of goal> vs. <time>, and from that estimate the final <% of
goal> for this campaign.

The problem with your original calculation, is you're assuming the rate is
constant, which it may be, roughly, for day 3 through day 27, however in these
campaigns there's always an uptick right before the deadline. Really, it's
that uptick that you want to estimate, based on previous campaigns.

I don't think kickstarter or indigogo release this kind of data though,
unfortunately.

~~~
calebegg
There's a graph in this blog post showing the phenomenon you describe:

[http://www.kickstarter.com/blog/shortening-the-maximum-
proje...](http://www.kickstarter.com/blog/shortening-the-maximum-project-
length)

------
mongol
If this showed up on Dragon's Den, Mark would get kicked out head first. He
has a vision, but how will he get there? The path ahead needs much better
details. Right now he is selling a dream, but for $ 32 million he better
explain how to get there. For example: on what estimates does he base the
expected deliver date? What are the tasks ahead, and how far along is he
already? It is impossible to judge what risk is associated with this project
when there are so many unknowns.

He sells this to us the same way that wallets and pens are sold on
Kickstarter. If he can get 32 million with no more than this, I am impressed.

PS: The project might be very realistic, but how can we know? For example,
Pebble missed some certification that screwed German backers since customs
stopped the watches. There are a million small things that can go wrong - how
well prepared is Ubuntu to deal with those?

------
baran1
The podcast to this blog entry
[http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2013/05/15/184208123/were-
mak...](http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2013/05/15/184208123/were-making-t-
shirts-lots-and-lots-of-t-shirts) goes through what the funding graph for
their kickstarter project looks like. TLDR; level in the middle, spikes at the
end.

------
pulakm
It would be pretty interesting to see what the funding progress chart was for
other large crowdfunded projects (Pebble, Double Fine, etc) for comparison. If
we assume that the rate of funding will not increase beyond the current rate,
the project will not meet the goal. I don't know how valid that assumption is,
though -- intuitively it makes sense, but it is possible that other projects
have challenged that assumption. Especially possible if they managed to get a
further round of press midway through the campaign.

~~~
ne0phyte
Why didn't you google? There's a site that keeps track of kickstarter
projects:[http://www.kicktraq.com/projects/ouya/ouya-a-new-kind-of-
vid...](http://www.kicktraq.com/projects/ouya/ouya-a-new-kind-of-video-game-
console/)

~~~
pulakm
Sorry about that - I tried Googling but was unsuccessful!

------
itstriz
I threw together a quick version of this in Python and for Kickstarter
projects instead of IndieGoGo in case it's useful to anyone.
[https://github.com/itstriz/kickstart_tracker](https://github.com/itstriz/kickstart_tracker)

------
seferphier
They need to devise a new kickstarter reward scheme. (understandably, this
would create more logistical problems)

$20 - access to discussions.

$40 - private beta to ubuntu convergence

$50 - ubuntu edge t shirt, private beta to ubuntu convergence

$60 - ubuntu phone dock, private beta to ubuntu convergence

$90 - ubuntu dock, t shirt and private beta to ubuntu convergence

$650 - early bird: ubuntu edge (add $30 for dock)

$700 - ubuntu edge

$750 - early bird: ubuntu edge + 1gb extra ram / extra storage

$800 - ubuntu edge + 2gb extra ram / extra storage

$850 - early bird: ubuntu edge + 1gb extra ram / extra storage

$900 - ubuntu edge + 2gb extra ram / extra storage

$1200 - ubuntu edge + 2gb extra ram / extra storage plus custom limited
edition orange casing + t shirt

$20,000 - air ticket to london for a private tour around the office where we
will share the making of ubuntu edge and receive your ubuntu edge first

------
drcoopster
I was close to going for the $600 price point, but ultimately even that is too
much (for me) for what is essentially preproduction-quality hardware of
dubious utility (to me).

------
movebits
uptick in funding after posting to hn (was posted at noon) - surely not
significant... still...

    
    
      funding     rate of time
                  change
      
      $3,417,771  0.00170 10:00:01
      $3,423,612  0.00170 10:15:01
      $3,430,588  0.00203 10:30:02
      $3,443,738  0.00383 10:45:01
      $3,449,423  0.00165 11:00:01
      $3,455,749  0.00183 11:15:02
      $3,466,419  0.00308 11:30:01
      $3,474,076  0.00220 11:45:02
      
      noon posting today ~ slight uptick
      in rate of change of funding level (see slight
      change end of graph)
      
      $3,476,017  0.00055 12:00:01
      $3,483,942  0.00227 12:15:01
      $3,494,038  0.00289 12:30:02
      $3,512,621  0.00531 12:45:01
      $3,517,943  0.00151 13:00:01
      $3,525,984  0.00228 13:15:02
      $3,531,110  0.00145 13:30:01
      $3,545,968  0.00420 13:45:01
      $3,550,419  0.00125 14:00:02

------
antimora
I don't understand why the numbers do not add up to $3,518,954. This is what
I've got so far 20×1347+373×830+13×1400=$354,730.

Was there a baseline to begin with?

~~~
ximeng
They sold something like 5044 at 600 and then removed it from the page. Also 3
at 10000.

------
niels_olson
$10k growth every 15 minutes 1 day after pre-launch? I'd take that. Of course,
the project has been working hard for 10 years too.

------
movebits
24/7/2013 - updated graph and data after $625.- deal @7 a.m. was posted

------
akandiah
Due to many requests, they have added more funding levels.

------
miga
So what are estimates of total funding in 30 days?

------
mpg33
Whoa, seemed to level right off for some reason.

------
general_failure
It's unlikely Edge will get 30m USD. And I am usually never wrong when it
comes to predictions.

------
movebits
added more data; chart starting time; up until 1:30 p.m. today

------
Buzaga
having one of these and use it as a phone/development-machine/transformer
would be seriously awesome, no?

