Subject: Re: [linux-audio-dev] open firmware: experiences?
From: Paul Barton-Davis (pbd_AT_Op.Net)
Date: Sat Apr 29 2000 - 23:47:08 EEST
Well, I sometimes like to think of myself as a DRUM, but I'm often a
kooky kind of KAT like that. I guess I would love to say "sure the
firmware would be a winner in my book", but unfortunately, I already
gave them my money, and have one of these devices on the top of my
rack box. Fine product. Damn fine.
>3) The firmware is feaure-rich. Too feature-rich, really. You can just
>wander around in the user-program space and get really wild things
>happening. Open sourceing the firmware would help iron this out a lot.
Note that the simpler versions of the device don't expose much of this
functionality, though its clearly all available.
>2) Are there precedents of other companies that own firmware opening it
>and winning as a result? I've looked on opensource.net, but I couldn't
>find anything that matched the situation these guys are in.
I don't know any firmware examples, but what happened after I released
the Hammerfall driver (2 or 3 other high-end companies decide to
immediately release specs to ALSA) seems like a vaguely comparable
situation. The Hammerfall is clearly establishing itself as a card of
choice for serious audio users under Linux, partly because its a great
design and partly because they let us write a driver and were the
first high-end card company to do so. That gets them a lot of
goodwill, too.
>3) The scenario is: the little guy makes a hundred units and opens the
>source to the firmware. They sell better than pokemon cards. Roland
>wakes up and takes notice, makes a similar design with the same
>firmware, and sells a thousand units. Roland has brand recognition
>advantage, distribution and manufacturing advantage, capitol investment
>advantage, and on and on. What do I tell them, or what strategy of
>communication, do I take to stop the fears of this happening?
Well, you could point out that in this particular case, its already
happening: Roland is already manufacturing 2 fairly similar units,
with all the advantages you mention above. The little guy doesn't have
much of a leg to stand on. Opening up the source to the firmware might
be one thing to clearly differentiate their product from Roland's.
--p
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