Oh well, what did I miss here...?
I guess it's time I give an answer as well.
OpenSource / GPL
First of all, as some noted, according to the GPL, the sourcecode does NOT have to be released as long as nothing has been released to the public.
You can take any GPL'ed software and do what you want with it, modify it, enhance it without having to release it.
Once you make your modifications available to the PUBLIC, you HAVE to release the sourcecode to it as well.
That said, it has NEVER been said anyways that the Pyra hardware will be GPL'ed. The sourcefiles will be released, yes, but that doesn't mean it's a GPL license. This has been stated a few times already.
You are allowed to do anything with the released stuff non-commercially. For commercial use, you need to contact me first and ask for permission.
I will be pretty open giving permissions, you can be sure of that. I will gladly allow new CPU board designs, improved cases (even mass produced), etc.
But I won't allow to reproduce the exact same product without any modification.
So yes, unless you plan to make a simple copy of the unit to sell it commercially, I won't have any objections.
Lessons learned from the Pandora
Well, what has been learned from the Pandora development?
I think there are some VERY important lessons. Some of the most important in my opinion are:
1. Don't give a certain release date if you are unable to do so.
One of the biggest issues was that the Pandora was promised to be released for christmas the SAME YEAR the preorders started. That made a flood of orders of customers thinking they would surely receive it before christmas.
Because of the delays the Pandora had, there were tons of unsatisfied customers and requests for for refunds.
For that reason, it is clearly stated on the product page that we DON'T KNOW YET when it will be finished. And we CLEARLY state that all the money from the preorder could in theory be lost, as there's ALWAYS a risk it won't work out.
So customers now know what they're getting into. That's one VERY important lesson, in my opinion.
2. Don't hide anything that goes wrong
One of the issues with the Pandora was that I was not allowed to post anything that has gone wrong - because OP UK was worried that will lead to more cancellations (which could've been true, as many were expecting that the Pandora was already final when they ordered it).
For the Pyra, you have also been informed about stuff that DIDN'T work out and needs to be corrected. That might look like we have no clue what we're doing (though other companies have the same issues but don't tell you during development), but these are the very reasons the Pyra has delays and also shows why we couldn't give an accurate release date.
We're a small team, not a company with 10+ workers simply dedicated to the hardware design and fixing the flaws.
3. Don't close down your shop!
Well, it's not a lesson I learned but something that was very important regarding the downfall of the Pandora:
OP UK Ltd. had a well running shop (GBAX) which had a lot more sales and profit than I had back then.
They closed it down as they wanted to concentrate on the Pandora - and they saw products like the WIZ or Caanoo as direct competition.
They also wanted that I do the same, but I refused.
The result: Due to the delays of the Pandora, the refunds and the monthly costs with NO source of income, OP UK Ltd. was doomed and ran out of money.
I could easily pay out all refunds and still can pay the few Pyra refund requests I receive.
The shop is running well, at least 50k EUR of profit within the last half a year has been used to fund the Pyra.
So yes, unless everyone cancels at the same time, there is no real danger that the Pyra won't be made.
We're making enough profit to cover prototype production runs and pay other companies to measure Wifi issues or analyze what exactly is going on with the 4GB RAM on the CPU board.
These things need time, but the money is there.
4. Use companies in Europe as much as possible
Choosing a new company for a production is always a hit or miss, regardless where the company is located.
As it turned out, the company chosen to design and produce the case isn't much better than the one we used in China. It's not a total miss (as they try to fix all the issues for free), but it certainly is not what I had hoped for.
However, there is one big advantage: I can easily visit them. I've been there a couple of times already, It's only a 2 hours flight away and as it's within the EU, I don't any special documents to visit there.
If the same had happened with a CHINESE company, things would've been a lot different... visiting there is expensive and not especially easy. And then you've got the language barrier...
And in worst case, if you need to start a lawsuit if all else fails, it's a lot easier doing that in Europe than in China as well...
What went well, what didn't?
Even with all those lessons learned, there's still a lot I am myself not happy about.
One of the biggest disappointments for me is the case: It took a LOT longer than planned and didn't turn out as well as I hoped it would. The transparent case shows it's robust, doesn't break and there have been improvements compared to the Pandora case, but it has taken WAY too long, they didn't really know how to properly design shoulder buttons and the case could have been at least 3 - 4mm thinner.
That's where I'm not happy at all - but there wasn't much I could do. Switch companies? Well, yes, for production, when the mold exists, this is possible.
But otherwise, I would've thrown 80k EUR away (design and molds). No big deal for a huge company, but almost impossible for a small team as us.
Also, I didn't expect THAT many issues with the hardware development.
First the rotator issue, then the 4GB RAM, bad Wifi, etc.
It all adds up to a LOT of delays.
The fact that TI stopped the software development for the OMAP5 and a lot of features aren't properly implemented didn't help as well. Never knowing if a bug you encounter is hardware of software doesn't make debugging easy - especially not for small teams.
Thanks to members like zmatt, we got rotation working without the special chip, but it still delayed everything for at least 10 months.
Then there's the 4GB RAM issue... with the old OMAP3, everything was a lot simpler. Less picky. But the faster and smaller designs get, the more picky they are regarding their environment.
I didn't expect that - Nikolaus didn't expect that.
But it added a lot of delays as well.
So, what could I have done differently?
Well, in my opinion: Not much.
Choosing a company is a hit or miss, but unless you have a lot of money to spare, you cannot simply switch a company inbetween, so the best thing you can do is try to deal with it and keep at them so that everything will be eventually finished, even though there will be delays.
Sure, I could've scrapped the case company and look for a new one during development.
But that would've caused at LEAST 50k EUR loss AND you don't know upfront whether the new company will be any better.
BUT you add the risk that you run out of money. Not a good idea, is it?
So my approach was:
Continue, try to work everything out as good as possible, keep the shop running so that you won't run out of money and tell the people what's going on.
Was that a bad approach?
What would you have done in my place?
The other option would've been to give everything up, as it didn't work out... which means that all the work that has already been done would've been for naught and the money of most of you who preordered would've been gone as well.
That's not really an option for me.
)
