I hate being the guy to bitch about these things, but the FastBot BBP looks like it is clearly a violation of the CC BY-SA license. I’m using CC BY-SA on Replicape in the hope that anyone who wants to use it will respect the license and keep it CC BY-SA and give credits to the original authors.
Looking through the BOM, the stepper drivers, shift registers, mosfets, mosfet drivers, DAC, EEPROM and the schotky diodes all match. I’ve not seen the layout yet, but from the picture, it looks like a clean copy-paste.
Having spent most of my time developing this for the better part of three years, it really pisses me off to see something like this. CC BY-SA is super liberal, just add the name of the fucking orignial authors.
While Replicape is not the cheapest product (we are working on that), no way you can combine a Replicape and a BeagleBone Black in a single board and get the price down to what they are offering. The BOM cost alone will be in the ~$80 range unless you are looking at batches of at least 1000 units, which the $10.000 goal does not match. BeagleBone Black is cheap because it’s made in large batches. I’d hate to see people be misled by the promise of a cheap knock off only to get disappointed.
BTW, I love the comments by @Arthur_Wolf on their Kickstarter, way to go
@Elias_Bakken They have not yet actually said what license they are going to use.
I strongly suspect they want to use CC-BY-NC.
But the fact that they are using the Open-Hardware logo forbids them from doing that.
I exchanged a few emails with them, and what I get from it is they seem generally uneducated about licensing issues.
@Elias_Bakken From emails, they say where they are at now is they have not yet “decided” what license to use ( I suspect they intended to use CC-BY-NC because they have released a 3D printer under that license ).
Obviously it’s a no-brainer if they are forking CC-BY-SA work.
But if they end up doing the wrong thing and going the violation way, I’m pretty sure Kickstarter would be helpful at resolving the issue.
Haha, @foosel the video footage looks like it’s been taken from http://istock.com with Troy McLure as the narrator. Sorry, that was below the belt, but I’m seriously questioning their ability to complete this KS. Manga Screen had an MSRP of twice the cost, but all in all will come out with about 0 profit. Too low margin and you end up loosing money and for HW startups, that will likely mean the product won’t be delivered.
There are certainly some cultural barriers for these guys. Giving the right credit certainly seems to be a challenge. They drop my name like it is an endorsement (and I haven’t even seen the board), just because I’ve expressed a lot of interest. My goal for BeagleBone Black is that people really use it as a source to create their own design, so I’m happy to see this as a proof point.
Let’s engage them and make sure they correct the Kickstarter ASAP to give the right credit. Pulling it all into one board adds some value to the community if they can really do it at this price. They need to acknowledge those that made this possible, beyond just the letter of the law.
Saw the ks, knew immediately it smelled bad, so tired of people using ignorance of licensing as an excuse to violate said licenses. I’ll continue to point people towards high quality, compliant sources.
@Jason_Kridner thanks for your support on this, I was surprized to see your name on the thank you list, but that clearifies it. I think your thoughts on cultural barriers is right on the money, and I get that you like this direction for BBB, but if they make promises they cannot keep it ends up hurting the community more than helping it.
I was told the BBB was zero profit, at least before rev. C. The TI chip is a pain to design with too, because of how the pads are laid out, making it hard to decouple the power and get signals in and out of the chip.
Following this fiasco, it sounds like they either don’t know what they’re in for, or they’re setting up a pump and dump.
Looks like they have made the repository CC BY-SA and Credit me which is a good start, but they will not be able to deliver on this. They have also limited the $1 award, probably to keep anyone from asking questions! I mean WTF, is there any other reason to limit the $1 rewards?
@Elias_Bakken I’m not familiar with the design software they used, but it seems to me as though they only published the schematic, not the board files, so it’s still in violation of CC-BY-SA …
@foosel@Elias_Bakken Well I have a $1 pledge, will gladly pass any message you want along to the comments section
@Elias_Bakken I love the Replicape. I had been researching it about 3 days before the BBP was released. Being a high schooler earning min wage. The Replicape looked too out of budget. Then this came along and I thought it a good deal. However I am pondering on if it is a good purchase. If the Replicape could go under $150, I would be sold. Can I get your opinion on this, should, I get out of the BBP, and spend my life savings on the Replicape? Or stay with the Kickstarter? Plus, do you think the Replicape will have a mobile app?
@Connor_Widtfeldt I’m sorry to say I do not think they will deliver. Unless they have seed capital to cover their losses, you will probably only get some of your money back in 6 months. Just the fact that they have closed the $1 reward to keep people from commenting shows they know nothing about this culture.
Since we have announced making a new revision with an MRSP of (hopefully) $99 i think its reasonable that you get the same deal on the remaining boards. Our deal with CurcuiCo (that make BBB) is that we buy them for $87. The current MRSP of $179 is then still below the golden rule #1 of HW startups of selling for at least 2.3 times cost. http://blog.ponoko.com/2010/11/16/ten-rules-for-maker-businesses-by-wireds-chris-anderson-—-rule-1/
I’ll make the change to the web shop later today to match the price:)
@Connor_Widtfeldt I would not trust a Kickstarter with your life savings. If you really want to get into 3D printing go with a solid supplier and a proven design.
@Elias_Bakken That deal looks amazing! I’m totally getting one of those instead. However, what new features are coming out of the new Replicape? Should I wait, or get this existing one
