I agree that this would be an awesome option-- this community certainly feels strong enough to maintain a space similar to what they are going with the critter and guitari organelle. That said, the 2400 is an entirely different device and, as Brad has said, the current OS is already hypothetically at the systems ram limitations.
Maybe something to put on the wishlist for the future dsp board. Hell, maybe community contributed software is the solution to getting that sequencer finally there on the kordbot.
Agreed. The software by itself is pointless without hardware. There’s many projects where software is open source. Take ZuluSCSI for example. It’s working just fine with people making contributions. The toolchain that we need is most likely going to be arm-eabi-gcc and same binutils. The actual toolchain could be obtained from Arm’s website if you don’t fancy building from source.
People who do these things for a living do not need hand holding from the team. At this point everyone has their own tools. What matters is just writing some sort of instructions for flashing the board which I am sure people who do this stuff wouldn’t need because NXP has it all on their website. I am also sure that those flashing instructions already exist. This would also gatekeep average users from getting into it and waste everyone’s time. Just give us the schematics and build instructions and we should be good to go. Flashing instructions wouldn’t hurt.
I think sharing the schematics is exactly the issue here
Poor PR’s can be rejected. It’s just a matter of trust and willing to let go of some control
Given how popular systems development is, I am sure there’s going to be 3 people at most on this forum who would be very interested in seeing the code and let alone be willing to understand it.
Well no not really. Bug squashing is not lost on me as the more significant use of time. I’ve dealt with the bugs just like everyone else and I think it’s obviously most important to make the machine work as solidly as possible doing what it does do before we stretch to make it do what it doesn’t do. With that being said though my sentiments remain.
I don’t want to buy another machine after this and I hope that it eventually stretches to its absolute limit of possibilities and the key phrase in my original post , whilst retaining operability.
If only 3 people plan to help, why go through the bother of open sourcing this code? Just approach Brad directly and let him know you all are willing to help for free (or beer). Sign the appropriate contractual paperwork and have at it. I don’t see why Isla would refuse free labor unless they felt like the increased management overhead would be a net negative.
Isla Instruments releases official firmware updates.
Developers (registered owners?) can download and modify the source code and publish their mod for free / beer / $$$.
If you want to stay safe or your machine is still under warranty etc. use option 1.
If you need immediate fixes of critical bugs or an extra feature use the second option at your own risk.
Again, a nightmare in the making. Imagine the strain this would cause Isla. They’d have to ask ‘did you install the unofficial firmware before the system bricked?’ People would be like ‘no, of course not mate’ and it’d turn out they had, at which point Isla would have to return the unit and not work on it because the warranty would be invalidated, which would make them look bad and generate all sorts of negative press… It just would not work. If you want any updates at all and you want this company to continue delivering excellent updates to a classic machine, get your head out of the clouds and let them keep up what they’re already doing.
To those convinced this is a very bad idea, you can barely destroy anything with firmware. There’s a reason hardware designers have a job in the first place.
While I think forking is a possibility, how would a fork keep up in sync with origin once new feature updates are introduced? I also have this thought that it might separate the community exactly like people are arguing “how straining it is to open source something”. Having opened pull requests in the repo doesn’t imply that you will have to merge them.
It kind of seems like you are arguing two points at the same time in this thread.
That they should make things open source.
That participating in development of an open source firmware would be out of reach in terms of technical-ness for pretty much everyone.
Are you going to be the new team?
Anyway, I’m just a dumb assed macbook owner and analytical chemist with almost no coding experience but I can repair electronics and design things for days. What would be the barrier to an interested laypeson to start experimenting / implementing things on this hardware?
It’s now nearly two months since the new update was announced as being imminent. If it wasn’t ready to roll out then why get everyone’s hopes up back in December guys? I know you don’t want to commit to a new date, but some idea of when the fixes will be ready would calm us down
Yes, because I wanted to do something. You see, I am used to doing something in my life when I have the capability instead of sitting and waiting for magic to happen.
Of course. These things are incredibly difficult for everyone. Even those involved. You either work in the field and somewhat know your ways around hardware or you do not. The field itself is oversaturated with old people because it’s hard to get in. You need to be able to read schematics, be able to search through datasheets that are 8000 pages long, know which questions to ask yourself, etc. Programming is the least important thing here. It’s the process that matters. If you have engineering background then you can probably do this because you might have the most important skill which is problem solving.
Haha, hell no! I was just fed up with the state of things and wanted to change them up for the better. However, seeing so much traction, copium and wishful thinking from the community, as well as how long all of this is dragging on, reduces my interest in the unit altogether. I haven’t touched it or made any music whatsoever since probably October. This device killed all of the passion in me with the amount of bugs and instability.
I think you are way better than you think you are. Do not underestimate yourself. I am, in turn, just a kid with an expensive device compared to most people here. The barrier is problem solving, and knowing how to use the tools. One probably needs to have at least a multimeter. In some cases a scope and a logic analyzer are a must. (This will definitely be the case once the new daughter boards come into play.) You need to know how to solder somewhat small things to be able to solder wires to test points so you can attach a probe. You need to know your way in Linux and the command line interface to the point of being comfortable. We will probably have to buy some sort of a hardware debugger and a probe for it. Those are very expensive but with the proper process it can often be avoided.
Can you guys please start a new thread for open sourcing the OS, which ain’t happening, anyway? The original moan zone topic is plenty for this thread.
Maybe we would have listened if you actually participated in the discussion in this topic. However, in this situation, you are just being unreasonable.
At least the bugs are being fixed. Most of those issues I have reported got closed this week. I am totally fine with it taking a bit longer if this trend continues.
I assume the documentation will also have to be updated and the changes tested.
