6 ms·
bit of a non-argument this. Existence of cheap alternatives misses the point of opensource, its not about cost. ref: free as in beer vs free as in speech.
by teknopaul 6y ago
bit of a non-argument this. Existence of cheap alternatives misses the point of opensource, its not about cost.
ref: free as in beer vs free as in speech.
- ceceron 6y agoSure, but money is a very effective motivational power. If something is expensive, there is a higher need to produce an alternative.
- adwn 6y agoI think you're missing the main argument: It would take a lot of money and cross-domain knowledge to design and build a passable printer from scratch. Contrast that with software, where all you need is time and a low to medium power computer. In fact, compared to software open source, all other open source engineering is non-existent (relative to OSS, not in absolute terms).
- criddell 6y agoWhy would you design one from scratch? The hardware out there is excellent and inexpensive. Start with that and write the firmware in a similar way that the Magic Lantern group did for cameras.
- adwn 6y ago> Why would you design one from scratch? The hardware out there is excellent and inexpensive. I thought the discussion was about open source printers, not about open source printer firmware? Sure, you could probably reverse engineer the interface to the actuators and sensors, which would allow you to write open source drivers, but you'd still be stuck with the printer manufacturer's cartridges.
- bgorman 6y agoEmbedded systems generally do not allow you to flash custom firmware to them these days, especially for printers as there is money at stake (you could write firmware to support non-vendors Ink/Toner cartridges), or to enable disabled features. In addition printers contain custom specific IP blocks related to everything from ethernet to scan and print functionality. It is just not feasible for someone to be able to write custom firmware for a printer without access to the hardware documentation for these devices. More sophisticated printers even have multiple CPUs for doing various tasks.
- rmah 6y agoThe problem is not the design or the firmware. The problem is the production of the actual physical printer. Building real things is not like compiling software. Nothing happens exactly the same every time. The minimal exposure I had to manufacturing has shown me that even simple manufacturing steps are infuriatingly difficult to get consistent.
- pjmlp 6y ago99% of FOSS consumers only care about free beer, hence the uptake on MIT like licenses.
- Fnoord 6y agoWhere did you derive that number from?
- pjmlp 6y agoGut feeling from what gets discussed over here and other channels when someone posts news about commercial tools or GPL dual licensed based stuff. Hordes of complains about paying for something, followed by MIT like licenses based clones.
- mickael-kerjean 6y agoNot parent but if 1% of the people who use my FOSS software [1] did pay for it, I'd be making a pretty good salary. I'm just a datapoint but my contributions don't cover the server cost alone and out of the many companies who did contact me, I've refused almost all of them as I'd be making more money flipping burgers than what they were willing to offer considering the time involvement [1] https://github.com/mickael-kerjean/filestash https://github.com/mickael-kerjean/filestash
- slow_donkey 6y agoI was just looking for an s3 browser. Will give this a whirl
- jakeva 6y agoI'm confused, would you be making a pretty good salary or would you be making more money flipping burgers?
- carlhjerpe 6y agoIf you remove FOSS from the sentence I believe you more.
- kiba 6y agoIt's a matter of ROI. There isn't much return or expertise on building an open source 2D printer, as opposed to 3D printers.