"open" Pandora?

[mali]

I wasn't complaining about the business model; just the name. I can do pretty much all the things craigix mentions to, say, a ThinkPad, can't I? So I don't think the project is significantly more open than any other computer.

It would be terrific for the project to at least aspire to its name. Given the difficulty of recouping the development cost, how about releasing the design specs after the first, say, 6000 devices are sold? By then we're probably thinking about Pandora 2 anyway.

Arduino is completely open hardware and is booming. I think that model isn't entirely out of the question.

The community would have some fair amount to gain. And the company might in the long run, also: it would foster development around the device, such as add-on hardware.

Like dflemstr said, MWeston will compose detailed hardware info of all the connections. The only thing missing will be the internal wirings not exposed to the user, which you don't need anyway. You could basically guess the whole schematic based on the different datasheets of the components. It wouldn't help anyone to to have the exact schematic anyway, what would you want to do with it, if I may ask?

This has been discussed to death in multiple threads which all led to the same conclusion. The dicussion about open hardware is purely akademic IMO. It's ok to criticize, but you would have to explain in detail what benefit you would have if the schematic was available, else your criticism lacks a significant plot and basically invalidates itself.

 

[Lozrus]

I wasn't complaining about the business model; just the name. I can do pretty much all the things craigix mentions to, say, a ThinkPad, can't I? So I don't think the project is significantly more open than any other computer.

I take you point but I think it's unfair, the Pandora is already significantly more 'open' than an off the shelf Thinkpad. The whole concept, design and feature set was created in very open discussion with the community on these forums. They have already stated that they will be releasing far more information about the boards than you would ever receive from Lenovo, and Craig has stated very clearly on this thread that if you have a project and need more details then they will do their best to help. Clearly the line is drawn if your project is to create and mass produce a clone.

Overall, the Pandora is far more open than usual hardware, running open source software, with an extremely open and helpful team behind it. However they have put a lot of money, time and effort into this project and do need to pay the bills etc.

 

[Polossatik]

There are AFAIK only 2 truly "open" (in the sense of CC copyleft hardware) handhelds , that is the bennote http://www.qi-hardware.com/ (made by a team who worked on the openmoko phone) and the Openmoko phone itself.

Arduino is also CC , but sorry that is a lot less complex then those things (or the pandora) .
The beagle board is the only thing that comes a bit close IMHO, but was "bootstrapped" by TI and then made open. Seen that's a "showcase" the sales of the board itself does not need to generate actual $$ for TI, they are more interested in creating a ecosystem around the actual chips.

The day's of "true open" hardware are just begon and it will be interesting to see what kind of business models develop (or not).
I can understand the decision to not "open" the pandora to a point where it's easy to "copy" the design.
The "Touch Book" of http://www.alwaysinnovating.com is basically following a similar line as the pandora.

The main reason to have a complete open copyleft HW I hear (besides the philosophic arguments) is actually to be able to continue to support the device when it's out of life. If the current first pandora model is not more made and we have a mark II or so model or openpandora goes bust, then it would be nice to have a complete openup of the schematics (and maybe even the gerber files...).

But, for the time beeing, as long as the openpandora team is willing to adress (reasonable) questions for hardware modders I don"t see any big issues (besides from philosophic point). And frankly I'm sure if there is a good reason to provide more information of some part of the schematics this can be discussed.

 

[mali]

...(besides the philosophic arguments)...(besides from philosophic point)...

^This.

Not to derail this thread(again), but it reminds of those endless discussions about the different types of puplic software licenses and so on.
If I have to philosophise, I think about global warming or world peace or something and not if it's ok to call an unknown mini-company "open" whatever.

 

[WizardStan]

I can do pretty much all the things craigix mentions to, say, a ThinkPad, can't I?

Nope. Have you ever talked to someone at IBM that actually designs the hardware to ask a question? How many solder points does the ThinkPad have that you can easily gain access to? If you do actually find a pad to solder to and can figure out what it is supposed to be for, do you think IBM will encourage this, or will they cancel your warranty?

 

[vputz]

oooh! look! an idiot, can I keep him?, can I? can I?

open does not mean OP give away the design so some Chinese firm can physically copy it for next to nothing with an inferior set of electronics and undermine the project, open means you can code for it with no restrictions, maybe you should learn to read or something.

Given that this poster does not seem to understand the concept of open hardware at all (which has been done on, yes, much smaller-scale projects), calling the OP an idiot and saying they should "learn to read or something" is certainly uncalled for.

When trying to create a creative environment for hacking, and under the assumption that developers will need many copies, opening the design of the Arduino hardware and software made perfect sense; hacking is the point. The openness of the Arduino design has resulted in a great deal of innovation even with vaguely pin-compatible designs (I currently prefer the Seeeduino myself, which you could rudely say was copied by a Chinese firm for next to nothing, but it's the same firm I've used to create my Orbshield kits and they have been great businesspeople to work with); the openness of the hardware design is the point so that the hardware will be improved in the future.

The OpenPandora folks aren't trying to create a hardware hacking culture; they'd probably be happy if that happened, and are pleased to provide pinouts and such to those interested, but that's not really the point of the Pandora, which is as an emulator (let's face it, a large fraction of Pandora owners are going to slap Mame/Snes/PSX/N64 emulators on it, torrent some roms, and call it a day) AND as an open/independent game/software development platform. To that end, they are using a well-documented open operating system to facilitate that.

Compare, say, the relative ease of swapping operating systems/software and developing for, say, the iPhone.

 

[kloplop321]

Given that this poster does not seem to understand the concept of open hardware at all (which has been done on, yes, much smaller-scale projects), calling the OP an idiot and saying they should "learn to read or something" is certainly uncalled for.

I think you missed who they were referring to. Unless of course you made up the quote yourself, in that case you refering to yourself which means that you do not "understand the concept of open hardware at all"

 

[Oscaruzzo]

What we won't do is release enough information to allow the Pandora to be cloned. That would be silly.

Actually that worked quite well with the Arduino boards.

 

[mali]

What we won't do is release enough information to allow the Pandora to be cloned. That would be silly.

Actually that worked quite well with the Arduino boards.

Please elaborate. What does "work quite well" mean in this case?

 

[darkblu]

you want truly open advanced board design? prepare to chip in.

 

[Geuben]

What we won't do is release enough information to allow the Pandora to be cloned. That would be silly.

Actually that worked quite well with the Arduino boards.

Please elaborate. What does "work quite well" mean in this case?

What I think they mean is that there are a number of Arudino clones which are proving very popular, and well accepted by the community. The makers of these clone have also gone on to create new varieties of Arduino with extra built-in functionailty (wifi, bluetooth) which is good for the community. The main difference between the Arduino project and Pandora is the cost, I'd imaging the NRE costs of design and development of an Arduino board are miniscule compared to that of the Pandora.

 

[mali]

What I think they mean is that there are a number of Arudino clones which are proving very popular, and well accepted by the community. The makers of these clone have also gone on to create new varieties of Arduino with extra built-in functionailty (wifi, bluetooth) which is good for the community. The main difference between the Arduino project and Pandora is the cost, I'd imaging the NRE costs of design and development of an Arduino board are miniscule compared to that of the Pandora.

And this is the problem. The OP crew is a bunch of enthusiasts, who just weren't happy with the gaming handhelds that were on the market. Sometimes the old school capitalistic way pushes innovation better than just giving it to the people.
ANYONE can set up a new project called "Open Peoplepandora" and post schematics. I'll donate 5 Euros for site hosting if they allow me to troll their boards.

 

[Geuben]

And this is the problem. The OP crew is a bunch of enthusiasts, who just weren't happy with the gaming handhelds that were on the market. Sometimes the old school capitalistic way pushes innovation better than just giving it to the people.
ANYONE can set up a new project called "Open Peoplepandora" and post schematics. I'll donate 5 Euros for site hosting if they allow me to troll their boards.

I can't tell if your reponse is in agreement with my post or not.

 

[second exodous]

And this is the problem. The OP crew is a bunch of enthusiasts, who just weren't happy with the gaming handhelds that were on the market. Sometimes the old school capitalistic way pushes innovation better than just giving it to the people.
ANYONE can set up a new project called "Open Peoplepandora" and post schematics. I'll donate 5 Euros for site hosting if they allow me to troll their boards.

I can't tell if your reponse is in agreement with my post or not.

+1, confused me a little also. Where were you going with this?

 

[mali]

I can't tell if your reponse is in agreement with my post or not.

It's neither. I thank you for explaining the Arduino project, as I never heard of it. My post is directed at the unhappy people who want schematics. Recovering R&D costs and getting compensation for 1.5 years of sleepless nights should be ok for the OP team, I think.

Edit:
I should have shortened the quote like this:

The main difference between the Arduino project and Pandora is the cost, I'd imaging the NRE costs of design and development of an Arduino board are miniscule compared to that of the Pandora.

 

[Geuben]

I can't tell if your reponse is in agreement with my post or not.

It's neither. I thank you for explaining the Arduino project, as I never heard of it. My post is directed at the unhappy people who want schematics. Recovering R&D costs and getting compensation for 1.5 years of sleepless nights should be ok for the OP team, I think.

Edit:
I should have shortened the quote like this:

The main difference between the Arduino project and Pandora is the cost, I'd imaging the NRE costs of design and development of an Arduino board are miniscule compared to that of the Pandora.

That makes more sense, it was just the "And this is the problem." bit, I thought you were implying that what I had said was the problem. If I were in the OP teams position I wouldn't be releasing schematics and designs. I'd want to recoup costs and make a worthwile profit for my efforts (an awful lot of effort in this case) before I even considered releasing such things to the generel public. Maybe in the future when the team is planning on moving on from the Pandora (either totally or on to a new version) they might consider releasing the designs so that the Pandora can still be supported/manufacturered. Honestly though the Pandora is massivly more complicated to manufacture than something like an Arduino, which means that releasing this designs won't enable the average joe to do much with them, only open up the way for cheap and nasty clones.

 

[mali]

That makes more sense, it was just the "And this is the problem." bit, I thought you were implying that what I had said was the problem. If I were in the OP teams position I wouldn't be releasing schematics and designs. I'd want to recoup costs and make a worthwile profit for my efforts (an awful lot of effort in this case) before I even considered releasing such things to the generel public. Maybe in the future when the team is planning on moving on from the Pandora (either totally or on to a new version) they might consider releasing the designs so that the Pandora can still be supported/manufacturered. Honestly though the Pandora is massivly more complicated to manufacture than something like an Arduino, which means that releasing this designs won't enable the average joe to do much with them, only open up the way for cheap and nasty clones.

Perfect post. If there were a reputation system you would get +rep for it

 

[WizardStan]

Actually that worked quite well with the Arduino boards.

It worked quite well in the sense that it increased the demand for atmega processors. TI would benefit greatly if the Pandora went open source hardware; they would still get money from every sale whether it was an original or a clone. That's why they have no problems with BeagleBoard clones.
The 5 guys who originally put the time, effort, and most importantly money (Craigix mortgaged his house to fund the project for Pete's sake!) would get absolutely nothing from clones: there is no benefit to opening the hardware.
The Arduino guys also get money by selling development kits, so even they benefit from clones to some extent. They are, however, not making as much money as they would have if there weren't clones. Which isn't entirely unacceptable: the Arduino boards aren't exceptionally complex and probably didn't take a lot to design. They made back their money fairly quickly, I'm sure. They could afford to risk clones. Craig has gambled his house that they will make money on the Pandora. Would you like them to add the uncertainty of whether they'd get cloned into that risk?

 

[second exodous]

Well, releasing everything later wouldn't be useful as the Pandora is basically an ARM based computer. Code that runs on the Pandora will run on a much more efficient/powerful ARM setup so cloning it years from now won't benefit anyone. You only need to worry about cloning until the next big platform comes out and after that the design is pretty useless. Also, it's not a platform that uses proprietary media(carts) or code(it doesn't have it's own OS) so that is another reason to make it pointless to clone.

These 'Open' threads are pointless, the Pandora is a computer and is as open as a computer. Is a PC consider closed because there isn't a schematic of the motherboard, hard drive, cd drive, and every other part floating around on the internet? I run Linux full time and am happy about how 'open' my hardware is that I can run my choice of OS on it.

 

[mali]

These 'Open' threads are pointless, the Pandora is a computer and is as open as a computer. Is a PC consider closed because there isn't a schematic of the motherboard, hard drive, cd drive, and every other part floating around on the internet? I run Linux full time and am happy about how 'open' my hardware is that I can run my choice of OS on it.

The funny thing is, that you can basically reconstruct the schematic based on the datasheets of the different on-board components. There is no hidden magic embedded in those wirings. They just connect chip A and chip B. For a modder this is absolutely enough info.