Cnc Data


Oh, what kind of world was I born into where people deliberately hold each other back?
Dog eat dog.
survival of the fittest.
Must be an echo in here.
...Or it would be, if dog eat dog and survival of the fittest were the same thing. I don't personally think they are... but I suppose that's just an argument of semantics.
 
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I didn't even think of the idea of knock-offs when I wrote the OP, but now that you bring it up, decent quality knock-offs could be totally sweet. More people to play multiplayer games against, more people developing against the same target.
And this is the exact reason why the hardware will never be opened up. Gee thanks. You want some other company to take our work and make something cheaper and take away any chance for profits that would make all of this worth it. Thanks so much.

i totally understand this, i've seen the same discussions in other "open" hardware projects. the only way to escape economics is either doing it as a hobby project or with public/research funding.

one way to mediate between economic/research/hobby interests could be a creative commons noncommercial license
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The hardware on a design like this isn't mod-able. You can't strap on some new resistors and make a part of the circuit do something different. Most of the connections are buried inside the board and most of the components can fit a half dozen on the tip of your finger. The only people who really need the design are those who want to copy it and use it for themselves. The rest will look at it and go: "ooh, pretty" and that's it. There will be enough documentation on how to connect to all of the actual mod pads inside the case (placed as the only way you could get at the unused signals anyway"] and also enough documentation that anyone could create a board support package for any distro we don't get to first.[/quote]yes, nobody will etch and solder a pandora PCB in their garage so the layout is only interesting for people who can shell out a few 10.000 dollars for a factory production run - so no possibility is lost when the layout is closed .

but what about the schema? this could be useful if you want to mod something a try to learn from it. you'd be amazed with what people can hack into devices.
you say theres no space? give us the CAD model and we'll do our own case with extra space: http://reprap.org
 
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Several of my windows are open much of the time at the moment because of the heat...

Oh. THAT Windows! I can answer that without humour actually - the good thing about open stuff, especially REALLY open stuff, is that you can run whatever you like on it - even closed things. The only limitations being technical ones. This is contrary to closed systems where you can only run closed stuff*. The more closed a system is, the more restricted the user is - but the more open a system is, the more the user has the control, and the choice about running closed or open software. Freedom of choice is, on the whole, a good thing IMHO :)



Ta,


*for the most part, unless you "break in" and open up the system - but then it's no longer truly closed...
 
but what about the schema? this could be useful if you want to mod something a try to learn from it. you'd be amazed with what people can hack into devices.
That too will be kept tightly closed. It would be giving too much away to have it open. However, Michael has already stated that he will fully document the internals and all connections where possible.
To be honest, I think it's more fun to hack closed hardware as you never know what you find. It's not going to hold anyone back - just look at the EEE PC. Thats a fully closed system with modifications galore.
 
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but what about the schema? this could be useful if you want to mod something a try to learn from it. you'd be amazed with what people can hack into devices.
That too will be kept tightly closed. It would be giving too much away to have it open. However, Michael has already stated that he will fully document the internals and all connections where possible.
To be honest, I think it's more fun to hack closed hardware as you never know what you find. It's not going to hold anyone back - just look at the EEE PC. Thats a fully closed system with modifications galore.
That sort of reminds me of back a number of years ago when a couple of hackers figured out that you could add some significant functionality to Canon Rebel. It was an odd one which just required changing a single bit out of the whole firmware IIRC.
 
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