DSO NANO / QUAD Open Source

With this post I don’t want to offend anyone. Sorry if sometimes it looks like agresive and sorry for my english.

I think Seeed Studio REALLY have to think about open source. I mean, ST have to make a good Wiki, with a good download page, a central soure code, and all the stuff requiered by an open source app.

Like we are now, we have spreaded firmwares in the net, and the efforts made for one person are not reflected in the Central Open Source Code, I mean, everyone is doing a closed source from the open source. Do you understand?

I think Seeed need to be more organized with this. If you really want to make an OpenSource Device with a GOOD comunity you have to think about this.

I am currently programming a custom Nano firmware for a US Company, I have no problem to share some updates that maybe could help with a better firmware but it doesn’t mean nothing becouse now all the source is concentred in one person who does not open the source code and some minor updates in the oficial 2.5 firmware doesn’t will make sense.

So, I hope SEEED STUDIO start working on this mess.

I have no problem to help, as a dev or whatever is needed for organize this. Just say it.

My 2 cents.

Many are the ones who have brought this up before (including me). Why not end this once and for all? I can’t see why this is such a big problem. This is scarring away far too many potential developers! Don’t we all want the firmware to evolve to something even more unimaginable?

Is BenF’s firmware open source or is it not?
BenF please please please be cooperative here and share your latest developments of your impressive work. Please…

Seeed, your repository gitorious.org/dsonano as official repository. He is the only one more except diego who volunteered to handle a repository (AFAIK) and he already has it set up and continuously working on it. Then make announcements of it so everyone knows about it, don’t keep it secret!.

Seeed Studio has provided a very open product, with published hardware schematics and a working firmware implementation published as open-source (MIT license). They host an open wiki* and set up resources on code.google.com. So what more do you want from them? To heavily develop further on the open-source firmware? I do not think they have the resources for that.

Ben did amazing improvements of the firmware and published it as free software under LGPL. Anyone else releasing firmware based on this must also release the modified source, so it is not like “everyone is doing a closed source from the open source”. Previously there were people making closed-source firmware based on the old 2.5 code, but compared to the free software Ben v3.0 I think they are all a joke. Of course Ben himself is free to do what he wants with his own work, so he can release closed-source versions as long as he comply with the original MIT license. After all he has done, I don’t see how anyone can complain about his voluntary work. You are free to work with the open-source version and you can use the closed-source firmware if you prefer.

Open source is not about telling others to do something, but to use the sources yourself. If you want community, it is about participating, not waiting for a company or anyone else to act. Open source projects often just happen, as long as there is an interest.

Except for Antonio’s work which was committed on svn I haven’t seen a single patch from anyone! Only numerous requests to Ben for releasing his latest work. But if we can not make anything useful with the current, open-source, well working firmware code, what more would we do if we had a little more recent version from Ben?

On the other hand, if we contribute code and features to the LGPL version, people will start using that (if the features and improvements are interesting enough) and in the end, maybe Ben will be tempted to contribute his work to it?

The source code is free, so it can not be taken away by Seeed, Ben nor me. I am hosting it on gitorious and have tried to make it clean and easy to work with for anyone (on any platform or compiler ). Anyone can clone my tree and host it themselves. But I am happy to receive patches and merge requests and maintain the “de facto” official code tree, if no one else does it better. So just keep coding…

BTW, with more people working on the code, I think it would be nice to have a development mailing list where people can post and review patches, because the forum is not suited for this kind of activity. But if there is no activity, no reason to set up the list yet.

*) I mean the “garden” wiki, where I built up this stuff http://garden.seeedstudio.com/index.php?title=DSO_Nano/Development

I think we are not complaining BenF work. And this, is not only for DSO NANO, becouse I think QUAD will be the same.

If the better firmware now is the BenF latest, making modifications in version 3.0 have no sense. Do you see my point?

Also, we are not talking about BenF, we are talking about SEEED to start making an OFFICIAL, open source trunk, in wich we will be able to code.

I never say anything about “telling others to do something” I am a dev, I don’t understand your point.

I am not complaining with you tormod, you did a good work with git and it is a first step, but I think seeed have to work on that.

No, I don’t agree! It is only better because BenF keeps working on his closed-source version and nobody is working on the open-source version… Ok, also because BenF is a “MF” awesome developer But that is not Seeed’s fault, right? And do you mean people should stop developing Linux because MacOSX is better, for instance?

My point is that we do not need to depend on Seeed to do anything. We can just set up the trunk ourselves. I am not sure if Seeed has the resources or experience to support or maintain a community-based open source project. I was not impressed by how the svn repo was set up and used, not to say how it was suddenly erased. But their svn repo was open for everybody, Seeed gave write access to those who asked. Maybe they pulled the svn because nobody was contributing to it. I think they should have shown more patience though. On the other hand, I would prefer that people base their work on my git tree rather than on the mess that the svn repo was. For me it was broken from start because it had just imported tarballs and build trees from here and there and kept many different versions in separate folders, and there was no commit history back to the original sources. This in contrast with my git repo where you can see all incremental changes back since BenF’s original code drop, and in one single tree.

With a distributed revision system like git, everybody can have their own repo, and it is up to the community which one becomes the official one, and if there is no consensus there can be forks in all directions. But in practice this is a small risk far outweighed by the freedom and flexibility. It is easy to maintain development or feature branches and keep them in sync with the master branch, and then merge them when they are ready. A branch can for instance be reworked into nice, clean commits with “git rebase” before being submitted for merge. And if for instance at some point Seeed wants to host a repo they can just clone it and everything is preserved.

Well, it sounded like you expect Seeed to do something. In general, my post was a response both to your post and many others asking for more source code, so not all was directed at you.

Thanks. I think Seeed have their hands full with QUAD and hardware development. And it is up to us to work on the code if we want to. Nothing is stopping us.

I suppose “open source” would also work if there are many “BenF’s”, each working on their version, each doing their version control and each and sharing their code. Then, non developers like myself will just pick the most suitable version and download…

The origional thread is here

Apologies if this has been posted before. Interested in point number 2 and 3.

Hey! I’m very thankful you are maintaining a git repository tormod. How can you take it so offensive?

No one said that! We asked for a official common place for source contributions! That surely can’t be too much no mather what resources seeed has? Don’t we all want it to be as easy as possible to contribute?

Who has complained about his work??? I asked if it was open source or not. Seems like there is some “release source when I feel like it” procedure now not stating anything about if his “closed” source branch is really closed or open nor his intentions with it. Is that complaining about his work? Or is asking about releasing it complaining about his work? Don’t you think if people are asking for it they must like it in some way? That is not complaining.

People don’t want to work on old code which has bugs and is missing features. It can be a huge work merging code branches together later, especially as I don’t think BenF is using a repository. Therefor people want to put their energy on latest code. The fact that it is not available makes people turn their heads away from making contributions in my opinion and that is reflected by the fact of the number of people asking for it but no single patch as you say.

Thank you guys for the inputs!

We never provide enough support because of experience and resources, but it does not mean we are keeping secrets or unwilling to serve the community.

DSO Nano is getting more and more mature with contributions including BenF’s firmware has benefit the community greatly. . People have clear understanding of this and express it. Since the contributions are granting better user experience, it’s less important to be in open source or closed way. IMHO, open source is more a voluntary deed, we can only encourage but not force everybody to share alike.

For DSO Nano’s firmware, we have paused upgrading as most of the engineering resources has been assigned to DSO Quad. We could provide better value on hardware and manufacturing part, it’s sincerely appreciated to have community loving this product and contribute to its software. We are not experienced in open source software management, which lead to complaints in above posts. Thanks Tormord for hosting it on gitorious! (The trunk on google code is mistakenly removed, could be recovered ASAP.)
We always wanted to support the efforts, rather than arbitrarily feed and decide for community. The engineering sample and upcoming licensing mechanism are two options we are trying, surely not enough.

Just had an idea for discussion: Can Seeed pay to get prominent close innovations open? If everybody likes the firmware and wants to learn/improve from it, we could negotiate with designer for some conditions including cash benefit. A lot details to be considered, but we regard it fair to compensate for the time professionals devoted.

Of course I understand you are not complaining about me, but that does not stop me from trying to force my perspectives on you I think you are whining and there is nothing to whine about. I understand the point that it is not tempting to put a lot of effort into for instance fixing a bug that you know BenF has fixed already when you do not know if he is going to release that fix soon or not. But if people are too unclear and do not communicate, just ignore them. They may have their reasons, and they probably have heard your position so you are not going to change them. So move on. Maybe they will change, but do not wait for that.

It was asked, is the firmware open source or not? Well, open source is what you see, and the one you see is open source. The one you don’t see is per definition not open source. Maybe it will be one day. But for whatever reasons it is closed, and I don’t think it is just because not enough people ask for it. So ignore it.

Remember when BenF released v3 as open source. Then the latest and greatest version was open source, but still the masses did not jump on board with patches and development. So the point of “the open source version is too old” is moot.

Why does the lack of “official repo” stop you from publishing your patches? You think Seeed will do separate, parallel development and your work will be in vain? You do not want to use gitorious? That I will take down my repo and delete your hard drive?

http://www.seeedstudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=1802 (last in the post)

History repeat itself. Do you know what I think for myself everytime I read something like that here on the forum?
“Hmm well poor guy go ahead and do that but I nor anyone else will use it because we have BenF’s firmware so go ahead and waste your time on your little firmware but don’t expect anyone else to have any benefit from it or thank you”

Yes, I’m actually a quite bitter person (not having anything to do with the nano).