why not open source?
Posted by hjorge
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why not open source? November 04, 2014 09:39AM |
Registered: 9 years ago Posts: 6 |
Hi guys, and a special question to Jim, the ByVac creator... for sure this has been thought and question many times but i thought of keep the debate of ideas again open and see if their is a change in heart...
i might be out of the loop here as i am a new comer in this community but after geting all the info available around in the net on the ByPic project and reading most of the posts here in the forum i realized what some already asked or thought at least! which is why not open source and what can be done to draw more users in?
Why is not ByPic an open source project? for sure is a simple question with many implications... at least make it open and if you feel scare that someone get your work for nothing you can allways make it completely open to all but restrict to been comerciall... this is just an example....
As a small business owner i can understand how scary one can think by giving away their own secret sauce when so much time and efort was invested in but then again if we think clear and see so many examples out there we see many business startups, also small put everything on an open source platform and had great sucess and make good business out of it, so the million euro question is why is this not the case? what other have that ByPic do not have?
in comparison too many i see the examples and tutorials especial for someone like starting is only a couple of code examples which makes it hard to jump in if one compare to some other big boys like the arduino, launchpad etc... that is why is so important in my view to make all the info available and open in order for many as possible to put out there their examples, their tutorials and one day ByPic can have a decente amount of docs for the newbie to follow and learn.
To be fair and ackowledge to Jim, i see and i am sure many of us do also, your hard work and lots of man hours you have put their on the documentation and so on, but in the end you see all that info is only in one place, your site basically and you have to agree that by puting it open you would see problably many site pop here and there around the world which in the end will make ByPic a more user friendly and known
i read at least a couple of users talking about the possibility of if something bad might happen to the creator one day which will make this ByPic project stand still if that happened, and if you invest in platafrom on hardware and software for hobby or other comerciall projects this is something of a turn off for sure...... one of the reasons specially when we are small business owner and we lack the resources to hire people etc is make sure there is a project continuity. It seems logic if many know and play with software and hardware then....for sure at least one or two will pick up and continue to develop within the community if (hope not of course) something bad happens....and that is what makes it alive and why other people want join... just take a look on some other open source platforms and you will see what i am talking..
these and other are some thoughts and questions i wnated to share with the community and see your opinion
thanks
i might be out of the loop here as i am a new comer in this community but after geting all the info available around in the net on the ByPic project and reading most of the posts here in the forum i realized what some already asked or thought at least! which is why not open source and what can be done to draw more users in?
Why is not ByPic an open source project? for sure is a simple question with many implications... at least make it open and if you feel scare that someone get your work for nothing you can allways make it completely open to all but restrict to been comerciall... this is just an example....
As a small business owner i can understand how scary one can think by giving away their own secret sauce when so much time and efort was invested in but then again if we think clear and see so many examples out there we see many business startups, also small put everything on an open source platform and had great sucess and make good business out of it, so the million euro question is why is this not the case? what other have that ByPic do not have?
in comparison too many i see the examples and tutorials especial for someone like starting is only a couple of code examples which makes it hard to jump in if one compare to some other big boys like the arduino, launchpad etc... that is why is so important in my view to make all the info available and open in order for many as possible to put out there their examples, their tutorials and one day ByPic can have a decente amount of docs for the newbie to follow and learn.
To be fair and ackowledge to Jim, i see and i am sure many of us do also, your hard work and lots of man hours you have put their on the documentation and so on, but in the end you see all that info is only in one place, your site basically and you have to agree that by puting it open you would see problably many site pop here and there around the world which in the end will make ByPic a more user friendly and known
i read at least a couple of users talking about the possibility of if something bad might happen to the creator one day which will make this ByPic project stand still if that happened, and if you invest in platafrom on hardware and software for hobby or other comerciall projects this is something of a turn off for sure...... one of the reasons specially when we are small business owner and we lack the resources to hire people etc is make sure there is a project continuity. It seems logic if many know and play with software and hardware then....for sure at least one or two will pick up and continue to develop within the community if (hope not of course) something bad happens....and that is what makes it alive and why other people want join... just take a look on some other open source platforms and you will see what i am talking..
these and other are some thoughts and questions i wnated to share with the community and see your opinion
thanks
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Re: why not open source? November 04, 2014 05:07PM |
Admin Registered: 11 years ago Posts: 351 |
I appreciate you taking the time to write the entry, thank you for that. All of the ByPic source code is open source it is ByPic itself that is copyright to me.
The actual cost of ByPic is very low, for example a PIC32MX150 at Farnell one off is £3.80 including VAT and I charge £4.60 for the same thing with ByPic loaded. In fact if you factor in the P&P Farnell is more expensive.
From a hardware point of view there is a huge advantage of having an interpreted platform, particularly one that runs as fast as ByPic. This currently gives my hardware an advantage which I don't really want to give away.
On the last point of being a small company, where disaster may leave no support, you are quite right, one consideration I have is to sell the rights for ByPic to a larger company - nothing in the pipe line yet though.
I have considered open source but at the moment I honestly don't know. When I can afford the new bungalow for my mother then I think I may give it away free.
The actual cost of ByPic is very low, for example a PIC32MX150 at Farnell one off is £3.80 including VAT and I charge £4.60 for the same thing with ByPic loaded. In fact if you factor in the P&P Farnell is more expensive.
From a hardware point of view there is a huge advantage of having an interpreted platform, particularly one that runs as fast as ByPic. This currently gives my hardware an advantage which I don't really want to give away.
On the last point of being a small company, where disaster may leave no support, you are quite right, one consideration I have is to sell the rights for ByPic to a larger company - nothing in the pipe line yet though.
I have considered open source but at the moment I honestly don't know. When I can afford the new bungalow for my mother then I think I may give it away free.
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