Comment by Ellison Chan on January 24, 2012 at 9:47pm

That's why I'm sceptical, about it. Well, building and testing 20 quads non-stop for 20 days, would probably put you in a looney bin, Dany. We're not talking about a Chinese sweat shop. ;-)

In a previous incarnation, I was a supply chain PM, and it just seems implausible.  They seemed to have not even contacted their designated suppliers to give them a heads up on stocking.  At least not that Chris seems to be indicating.  Similarly, Goodluckbuy would be caught off guard with such a large order of frames in one shot.  They are on holidays all the way to the end of January, due to Lunar New Year.  They're going to have a hard time filling all the orders that came in during the holiday, let alone ramp up production to fulfil this large order.  

JDrones Comment by Jani Hirvinen on January 25, 2012 at 12:55am

And then you can get fully assembled, tested and test flown hexas from jDrones with 1190 USD. It already includes everything, this way you also would support core development.

Goodluck buy is just "another" trading company in China that buys their products from multiple suppliers around the country

Distributor Comment by Dany Thivierge on January 25, 2012 at 7:31am

Ellison, put me to the test! :) someone order 20 quads to be ready in 1 month fully assembled and tested and I will deliver! (and I have a day job!) 

Come on! someone.. try me out!  

hehehe

Comment by Tero Koivunen on January 25, 2012 at 8:02am

I'm Impressed and jealous, exellent Market entrance timing.

58 Backers
$66,409 pledged of $25,000 goal
29 days to go

Comment by Ellison Chan on January 25, 2012 at 8:21am

Dany, maybe you should contact Kellie, and her husband, and offer to give her a hand in fulfilling the order.  Maybe there are some Canadian backers, and it would be much easier if they get someone on Canada to fill those ones.

Tero, what I've noticed on Kickstarter, is that many people think about, and treat these projects as non-profit.  Many are willing to donate at the small amounts, that provide no benefit other than just supporting the projects.  In my opinion, this is a little misleading, as most projects potentially end up making a very good profit, and I feel that any backer should be given credit, maybe in terms of shares, in these "startup" companies.

I also have a suspicion that many of these projects get their money, but for one reason or other do no happen, and Kickstarter ends up with unhappy users.  There was even one case where someone stole material that wasn't owned by them, and posted it up in Kickstarter as their own.  

In this case, it will involve DiYDrones software and hardware, and we'll hopefully hear hear about a bunch of very happy customers, or lots of disappointed ones.

Comment by Tero Koivunen on January 25, 2012 at 8:29am

I see this like the learning lesson, interesting to see what happens after Kickstart period.

Comment by Craig Treubig on January 25, 2012 at 10:20am

What happened to the term open source and its true roots?

Developer Comment by R_Lefebvre on January 25, 2012 at 10:40am

Tero, yes, I have to admit that my initial criticism has now turned into incredulity, and a little bit of jealously.  If this works, they are living the dream.

Now question though, is it not any sort of problem if they are selling these systems using our open source code?  They are profiting off our work.  Have they contributed anything?  It's one thing if they sell the hardware, and then tell customers where to go to get the program, compile, upload, and set the parameters.  But I don't think that's what the target customers will be expecting.  They must be loaded and ready to go.  With the code being loaded when it ships, isn't that breaking the creative commons rules?

Another factor to consider, is that I wonder if the users will be expecting a camera gimbal in the package?  They do realize that an effective camera gimbal is half the problem for AP right?  

Comment by Craig Treubig on January 25, 2012 at 10:44am

Great comment. I couldn't think of the best way to approach the subject but they are breaking possible CC and if the project doesn't have CC then it needs it added for protection of the the project overall.

Comment by Ellison Chan on January 25, 2012 at 10:59am

Ardupilot is GPL, so there's no problem with them pre-loading it on their drones, and shipping it out.  The problem arises when the end users need firmware upgrades.  Are they going to come to DiYDrones, or to them.  Like I mentioned, unless one of them is a crack programmer, and very technical, they are going to be relying on the DiYDrones community for updates.  How are they going to tell the end users that they have to tweak their PIDs because the new update requires it.  Imho, they really should have contacted someone in the DiYDrones community first, like Chris Anderson, first before doing this for many logistical reasons.  It seems to me they had an idea of how to capitalize on the work done by the community, and just posted it on Kickstarter, without much preparation.  I hope things don't go south, because it's the community's reputation on the line, and the project owners, can just go back to their day jobs.

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