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Do you feel any resentment against Apple from this chapter of your life?

by tpmx 7y ago

ChrisMarshallNY 7y ago
Answer 1: I did not have any kind of relationship with Apple, except for the standard Developer agreement. I don't think they copied anything from me, so it was not, truth be told, exactly the same. Answer 2: Not especially, but those of us that have been programming Apple since the 1980s (I've been at it for a loooong time) have learned a rather cynical outlook. Apple has a long, long history of stepping on its developers; often accidentally (but we still got stepped on). I've taken OpenDoc and QuickDraw GX courses, because they were the future. Anyone remember Copeland, and the enormous push behind it? I still love programming Apple devices. I'm writing an open-source Bluetooth driver, right now.
- tpmx 7y ago
  Of course lots of us remember https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copland_(operating_system) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copland_(operating_system). At least I hope there's at least a small amount of other 40+ devs on here. :) I think your attitude is healthy btw.
- erichocean 7y ago
  > I'm writing an open-source Bluetooth driver, right now. Link?
  - ChrisMarshallNY 7y ago
    It's still very much a WIP. I just burned the first iteration to the ground, and replaced it with a ghastly chimera that uses adapters to abstract the transport: https://github.com/RiftValleySoftware/RVS_GTDriver https://github.com/RiftValleySoftware/RVS_GTDriver I expect to have it to the same level as the original version in the next few days. After that, I will be working on a BT Classic transport adapter. I learned the hard way that it's a royal pain to try sniffing BLE.
    - cerberusss 7y ago
      Fascinating hardware. How does it work? Does the iOS device use BLE to connect to the goTenna, which is then connected to the end device (Windows PC or something)? Or do you always need two goTenna devices? Do you have a client who requires an interface to these devices? Or is it of general interest to you?
      - ChrisMarshallNY 7y ago
        Not exactly sure how the mesh system works. There’s basically three players in this space: goTenna, BearTooth and Radacat. goTenna seems to be the biggest and most successful outfit. BearTooth uses Bluetooth Classic; not BLE. In the latest OS revisions, Apple claims to have integrated Classic into CoreBluetooth, but the documentation is terrible, so I’m not sure how seriously to take it. You need multiple devices of the same type. When you buy them, they come in sets of two. You can have a whole network of them. goTenna markets a “pro” line, aimed at First Responders. You can buy sets of devices that go for like $20,000. They have a military use case, but I doubt it’s battlefield, as these could easily be “shoot me” beacons. I like that these are aimed at disaster response. I’ve been writing software to support NGO/NPO assistance for decades. No client yet. I’m doing this because I want to learn Bluetooth programming, and I want to create much more lightweight and flexible SDKs than the ones that currently exist. Their use case is that the devices establish a mesh network in RF, with devices acting as repeaters, and are controlled individually via Bluetooth. The current limitations on that seem to be software, as a function of their SDKs. I’d like to improve On their SDKs. For example, I’d like to be able to control goTenna devices directly from a Watch. You can’t do that, with their established SDK. I’m fairly good at SDKs. I’ve been writing them for decades. Most of the “closed” work I’ve done (what I was paid for) was SDK work. The driver is really just the lower-level part of an SDK, designed to provide transport abstraction. There will be another layer over that, providing application implementation support.
        cerberusss 7y ago
        Hugely interesting, thanks a lot for the info. I'd love to work with this stuff, but there's gotta be a client too :) Anyway, keep it up!

Do you feel any resentment against Apple from this chapter of your life?

by tpmx 7y ago

Do you feel any resentment against Apple from this chapter of your life?

Answer 1: I did not have any kind of relationship with Apple, except for the standard Developer agreement. I don't think they copied anything from me, so it was not, truth be told, exactly the same. Answer 2: Not especially, but those of us that have been programming Apple since the 1980s (I've been at it for a loooong time) have learned a rather cynical outlook. Apple has a long, long history of stepping on its developers; often accidentally (but we still got stepped on). I've taken OpenDoc and QuickDraw GX courses, because they were the future. Anyone remember Copeland, and the enormous push behind it? I still love programming Apple devices. I'm writing an open-source Bluetooth driver, right now.

tpmx 7y ago
Of course lots of us remember https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copland_(operating_system) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copland_(operating_system). At least I hope there's at least a small amount of other 40+ devs on here. :) I think your attitude is healthy btw.
erichocean 7y ago
> I'm writing an open-source Bluetooth driver, right now. Link?
- ChrisMarshallNY 7y ago
  It's still very much a WIP. I just burned the first iteration to the ground, and replaced it with a ghastly chimera that uses adapters to abstract the transport: https://github.com/RiftValleySoftware/RVS_GTDriver https://github.com/RiftValleySoftware/RVS_GTDriver I expect to have it to the same level as the original version in the next few days. After that, I will be working on a BT Classic transport adapter. I learned the hard way that it's a royal pain to try sniffing BLE.
  - cerberusss 7y ago
    Fascinating hardware. How does it work? Does the iOS device use BLE to connect to the goTenna, which is then connected to the end device (Windows PC or something)? Or do you always need two goTenna devices? Do you have a client who requires an interface to these devices? Or is it of general interest to you?
    - ChrisMarshallNY 7y ago
      Not exactly sure how the mesh system works. There’s basically three players in this space: goTenna, BearTooth and Radacat. goTenna seems to be the biggest and most successful outfit. BearTooth uses Bluetooth Classic; not BLE. In the latest OS revisions, Apple claims to have integrated Classic into CoreBluetooth, but the documentation is terrible, so I’m not sure how seriously to take it. You need multiple devices of the same type. When you buy them, they come in sets of two. You can have a whole network of them. goTenna markets a “pro” line, aimed at First Responders. You can buy sets of devices that go for like $20,000. They have a military use case, but I doubt it’s battlefield, as these could easily be “shoot me” beacons. I like that these are aimed at disaster response. I’ve been writing software to support NGO/NPO assistance for decades. No client yet. I’m doing this because I want to learn Bluetooth programming, and I want to create much more lightweight and flexible SDKs than the ones that currently exist. Their use case is that the devices establish a mesh network in RF, with devices acting as repeaters, and are controlled individually via Bluetooth. The current limitations on that seem to be software, as a function of their SDKs. I’d like to improve On their SDKs. For example, I’d like to be able to control goTenna devices directly from a Watch. You can’t do that, with their established SDK. I’m fairly good at SDKs. I’ve been writing them for decades. Most of the “closed” work I’ve done (what I was paid for) was SDK work. The driver is really just the lower-level part of an SDK, designed to provide transport abstraction. There will be another layer over that, providing application implementation support.
      - cerberusss 7y ago
        Hugely interesting, thanks a lot for the info. I'd love to work with this stuff, but there's gotta be a client too :) Anyway, keep it up!