---------- Původní zpráva ----------
Od: Petr Baudis <pasky@ucw.cz>
Komu: Brmlab: Hackerspace Prague (main discussion) <brmlab@brmlab.cz>
Datum: 11. 3. 2015 14:51:42
Předmět: Re: [Brmlab] Fabtotum

FYI, if you had a point to make, it would have worked better if it
didn't span 248 lines.

I think that polls are a better way of determining opinion than mail. My purpos was not to share an opinion, but to share a line of reasoning.

On Tue, Mar 10, 2015 at 10:44:09PM +0100, timothyhobbs@seznam.cz wrote:
..snip..
> In the end, I would have invested hundreds of thousands of Euros in research
> and development, I would have outside investors to please, and there would
> be no way that my low cost haptic computer system would be anything like low
> cost, and it certainly would not be open source.

Your metaphore works if brmlab would be going to do the same.
In fact, Fabtotum is *very* *very* cheap for what it should be doing.
(Suspiciously cheap, some would point out.)

I was reacting to Mario's general sentiment that we should aquire tools, not to the Fabtotum specifically. I agree that the Fabtotum is very cheep and perhaps interesting in it's cheepness.

> I agree with you generally, that brmlab could use some more good tools.
> However, I wory that if we invest too heavilly in proprietary soloutions,
> brmlab will lose its value. Brmlab shouldn't exist to build captive
> comunities for companies like EagleCad who wish to get free work done by
> enthusiests. Brmlab should exist for its own purposes and for the purposes
> of promoting the DIY and open source communities as a whole.

Yet plenty of people in brmlab use eagle, because it's the best tool
for the job due to various factors. Some people don't want to make
certain compromises, which is fine, but others do. And it's not like
settling with using a CC-BY-NC licenced equipment is that awful
a compromise, compared to a completely proprietary tool.

I agree that CC-BY-NC is not that awful, what is awful however, is the recent trend of companies claiming that not-so-open products are open.

Your argument would also work much better if there would be a bunch of
people working on some Fabtotum analogue in brmlab right now. I think
most people wouldn't even consider buying it then. But the choice is
*not* bought tool -- diy tool, it is bought tool -- no tool.

Yes, but did we consider the possibility of purchasing the parts for one of the fully opensource routers if we are going to buy a router?

--
Petr Baudis
If you do not work on an important problem, it's unlikely
you'll do important work. -- R. Hamming
http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/YouAndYourResearch.html
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