04-Nov-2017, 02:12 AM
We suffer from a problem in this hobby: information.
The Internet is littered with what is called 'kipple'. Things that were once fresh and useful become kipple when they are hopelessly out of date and inaccurate.
Out of date documents that don't even have a publication date on them, FAQs about fast moving technologies that are out of date a week after being released, stickies in forums that have loads of dead links, blank images and incorrect or outdated information. Wikis that started off with good intentions and then died. All these things are part of the kipple that confuses and misleads countless beginners.
Writing references for a moving target is an exercise in futility unless you have a team who are good at documenting their work. While some open source projects do a better job than others with documentation, the only people who have consistently published updated, accurate and well written documentation is the Ardupilot project.
The biggest problem in this tiny, exploding part of technology is that the only people making any significant money from Betaflight and Cleanflight are the hardware manufacturers and the distributors who sell their products. Many vendors and marketplaces sell designs that are straight up copies of a hobbyist's design and take open hardware, open software and sell thousands of flight controllers and associated items without giving the person who did the hard work the time of day.
Collectively, these companies make lots and lots of money from selling flight controllers, fpv quad kits, parts and related hardware. If these companies all contributed 1% of their profits from quad related sales it could give jobs to a team of developers who could dedicate their time to Betaflight and still pay their rent. They could get paid to improve Betaflight and make it even better!
There are too many companies out there, regardless of country, who use free and open source software and hardware developed by hobbyists to drive their sales without giving a thought to the people who make these things possible. If the people who make the money continue to use free software without donating meaningfully to the community that makes it possible for them to make money, they are being selfish and greedy. The result of this will only be the end of projects like Betaflight and more illegal closed sourcing of open source projects by people with no scruples.
This is already happening extensively in the 3D printer market. Many of the 3D printers you can buy today from China use the open source project called Marlin as the code that runs their printer. They make a few changes here and there to support new features and then close the source. They don't share their changes back to the community as both good manners and the license require, they refuse to give you the code if you want to make changes to your printer - like a temperature sensor in the hot end with a different profile.
If you attempt to remind them of their legal and moral obligations under the contract that allowed them to use copyrighted software in the first place, they simply stop replying to your e-mails.
The guys who are the Marlin project contribute to it in their spare time. They don't make any significant money from it. Even so, countless manufacturers make money from their work and break the contract and moral agreement that allows them to use Marlin for free. If you make money from open source, you should consider giving some of it to the people who helped you make that money. You can't simply take the open source program, change it and then refuse to give people a copy of your changed version! It's both illegal and immoral.
tl;dr
The Internet is filling up with out of date and incorrect help for people new to our hobby. How can we encourage the businesses that use free software to sell quads, flight controllers, ESCs, motors, frames etc, to fairly donate a small proportion of their multirotor related profits to the free software projects to pay for things like accurate and up to date help and documentation like the Ardupilot project publishes on their web site?
The Internet is littered with what is called 'kipple'. Things that were once fresh and useful become kipple when they are hopelessly out of date and inaccurate.
Out of date documents that don't even have a publication date on them, FAQs about fast moving technologies that are out of date a week after being released, stickies in forums that have loads of dead links, blank images and incorrect or outdated information. Wikis that started off with good intentions and then died. All these things are part of the kipple that confuses and misleads countless beginners.
Writing references for a moving target is an exercise in futility unless you have a team who are good at documenting their work. While some open source projects do a better job than others with documentation, the only people who have consistently published updated, accurate and well written documentation is the Ardupilot project.
The biggest problem in this tiny, exploding part of technology is that the only people making any significant money from Betaflight and Cleanflight are the hardware manufacturers and the distributors who sell their products. Many vendors and marketplaces sell designs that are straight up copies of a hobbyist's design and take open hardware, open software and sell thousands of flight controllers and associated items without giving the person who did the hard work the time of day.
Collectively, these companies make lots and lots of money from selling flight controllers, fpv quad kits, parts and related hardware. If these companies all contributed 1% of their profits from quad related sales it could give jobs to a team of developers who could dedicate their time to Betaflight and still pay their rent. They could get paid to improve Betaflight and make it even better!
There are too many companies out there, regardless of country, who use free and open source software and hardware developed by hobbyists to drive their sales without giving a thought to the people who make these things possible. If the people who make the money continue to use free software without donating meaningfully to the community that makes it possible for them to make money, they are being selfish and greedy. The result of this will only be the end of projects like Betaflight and more illegal closed sourcing of open source projects by people with no scruples.
This is already happening extensively in the 3D printer market. Many of the 3D printers you can buy today from China use the open source project called Marlin as the code that runs their printer. They make a few changes here and there to support new features and then close the source. They don't share their changes back to the community as both good manners and the license require, they refuse to give you the code if you want to make changes to your printer - like a temperature sensor in the hot end with a different profile.
If you attempt to remind them of their legal and moral obligations under the contract that allowed them to use copyrighted software in the first place, they simply stop replying to your e-mails.
The guys who are the Marlin project contribute to it in their spare time. They don't make any significant money from it. Even so, countless manufacturers make money from their work and break the contract and moral agreement that allows them to use Marlin for free. If you make money from open source, you should consider giving some of it to the people who helped you make that money. You can't simply take the open source program, change it and then refuse to give people a copy of your changed version! It's both illegal and immoral.
tl;dr
The Internet is filling up with out of date and incorrect help for people new to our hobby. How can we encourage the businesses that use free software to sell quads, flight controllers, ESCs, motors, frames etc, to fairly donate a small proportion of their multirotor related profits to the free software projects to pay for things like accurate and up to date help and documentation like the Ardupilot project publishes on their web site?