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