Open Schematics Of The Hardware

[gruso]

Refer to Chip's post, #19.

Then, get over it.

 

[marco.polo]

Refer to Chip's post, #19.

Then, get over it.

Sure ... I'm certainly not criticizing developers or project ... it's great project and kudos to all developers putting their effort and free time into it. It's really not an easy task ... greatly appreciated!

I was just puzzled by that weird 'chineese argument' and when I saw that post 'that makes sense' it just pissed me off because it certainly doesn't LOL

I understand all the NDA on hardware, that's unfortunate and I'm sure developers would make it open if they could.

Just stop using false arguments, that pisses me off a little Chineese would be wellcome to do their 'cheap imitations' and quite frankly ... non-disclosure of schematics is not going to stop them, even slow them a bit

Thanks ... I'm sorry I showed up out of blue and my first post is so critical but it kind of pushed my buttons.

 

[gruso]

A little bit of background might help in that case. My words aren't an official history, just the best my memory can do.

Up until mid(?) last year, the plan was for PCB mass production to take place in China. One of the main reasons for moving production to North America was the prospect of the design being ripped off. That's not such an issue for a companies like Sony/Apple/Nokia, because they are well established brands. People know if their $50 iPhone is fake.

But a Chinese knockoff of Pandora could be produced more quickly than the real thing, in greater numbers (a Chinese knock-off shop will produce 10 thousand off the bat). If a Chinese factory took a liking to Pandora's unique form factor, they would not only dilute the brand with fakes, they would obliterate Pandora's brand credibility before it even launched, with terrible clamshell "MP4 players" produced for ten bucks a pop. So the concerns are very much based in reality.

Bear in mind that OpenMoko only fully opened their hardware late last year - certainly not before they had firmly established their brand name and products.

 

[fusion_power]

The Case is made in China so they still could easily copy at least this part of the Pandora. I doubt there are trusted people who can control the productions directly into the Factory. So I hope it is a factory that can be trusted or we will have many 1:1 Pandora look-a-likes out there.

 

[Chip]

Chineese would be wellcome to do their 'cheap imitations' and quite frankly ... non-disclosure of schematics is not going to stop them, even slow them a bit
No, they wouldn't be welcome to do it. Craig and ED have their life savings invested in developing this project and MWeston has, at the very least, his professional reputation on the line. If some knockoff shop really wanted to make a Pandora clone, there isn't a hell of a lot we could do to stop them, but we're sure as hell not going to make it easy. Especially when, as I said before, full PCB diagrams aren't going to help anybody but knockoff shops.

 

[marco.polo]

Up until mid(?) last year, the plan was for PCB mass production to take place in China. One of the main reasons for moving production to North America was the prospect of the design being ripped off. That's not such an issue for a companies like Sony/Apple/Nokia, because they are well established brands. People know if their $50 iPhone is fake.

It just seems you have your philosophy wrong. Ripped off? That's like saying that if you make your software open it will be 'ripped off' ... No! It can't be ripped off, there is no such thing if your motivation is not profit. They can only make other versions of it ... better or worse it doesn't really matter. It's a threat to you only when you're trying to make profit and you worry that they can make it cheaper/better than you and you lose your monpoly, control of users and hence profit. Being 'ripped off' is a good thing if you're trying to actually benefit users - it's called forking of project - that's very useful freedom to have!

QUOTE

But a Chinese knockoff of Pandora could be produced more quickly than the real thing, in greater numbers (a Chinese knock-off shop will produce 10 thousand off the bat). If a Chinese factory took a liking to Pandora's unique form factor, they would not only dilute the brand with fakes, they would obliterate Pandora's brand credibility before it even launched, with terrible clamshell "MP4 players" produced for ten bucks a pop. So the concerns are very much based in reality.



Sorry this just doesn't make much sense when you really think about it. So what if they make it more quickly and 'fake'. Consider analogy to software again ... it's similar to not making software open-source because you worry that people will make weird versions of it full of spyware/malware and it will hurt your 'brand'. It's certainly possible, isn't it? So why nobody worries about it? Because it's silly

People know they have to download their software from official sources, all projects have official sites just like this one has. All it would take to prevent people getting what they don't want is to put up small warning on this site for people to order from here or check source of their order ... it's really common sense, people are not so stupid and if they are THIS stupid they'll get scamed anyway...

These 'reasons' are all just excuses used by proprietary manufacturers to make more profit and lock-in users to their brand. Unfortunately it's so mainstream that many people don't realize that and consider these reasons real, they're NOT. It all depends on your motivation ... if you're trying to make profit they are real, if you're trying just to benefit users they're not.

QUOTE

Bear in mind that OpenMoko only fully opened their hardware late last year - certainly not before they had firmly established their brand name and products.



btw, the reason why chinesee make fake products is because proprietary manufacturers have unbelievable margins, their products are greatly overpriced compared to component cost. That's not the case with open architectures (or it shouldn't ) so there would be no point in making fake pandoras.

Only reasonable argument i can think of against releasing boards is that you have investment (money) in it and you need to sell enough units to get the invested money back. After that, the only reason I can think of is profit. It can't hurt the project in any way anymore.

Anybody can buy one and reverse engineer it anyway so it achieves nothing except complicating life to developers that genuinely want to make it better.

But well ... i don't really care. Just wanted to point that out, it's really only minor issue and maybe developers will release it when they get their investment back or whatever. It's still hugely open platform and great step forward ... I'm so glad to see projects like this one. I hope that some manufacturer will see the potential, rebel and get rid of those NDAs LOL I can dream ... but who knows.

 

[marco.polo]

Chineese would be wellcome to do their 'cheap imitations' and quite frankly ... non-disclosure of schematics is not going to stop them, even slow them a bit
No, they wouldn't be welcome to do it. Craig and ED have their life savings invested in developing this project and MWeston has, at the very least, his professional reputation on the line. If some knockoff shop really wanted to make a Pandora clone, there isn't a hell of a lot we could do to stop them, but we're sure as hell not going to make it easy. Especially when, as I said before, full PCB diagrams aren't going to help anybody but knockoff shops.

Yeah ... as I said, investment is hell of a good reason to not make it easy but don't blame Chineese then LOL.
I just don't like when bogus arguments are used ... that doesn't mean there aren't REAL arguments to do it the way it's done ...

Full PCBs would benefit people interested in producing modified, potentially better, forks of pandora more than knockoff shops (for the reasons I already mentioned - there is no profit in knocking off non-profit project LOL).

But I don't want to start an argument or anything like that ... just an observation and really minor 'flaw', as I said it's still huge step forward and I'm greatful to developers for it so thanks for all the replies ... for the sake of not angering anybody I'll refrain from further comments

 

[LineOf7s]

Did a bus full of open-source zealots just pull up or something? FFS.