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Hmmm Now hobbyking is selling:
ArduPilot Mega V2.5 Flight Controller USB/GYRO/ACC/MAG/BARO
72 USD for the hobbyking APM 2.5 board
Are hobbyking selling this under license or is it a CN clone?
Can hobbyking use the name Ardupilot 2.5?
Comments
The five most active devs left OP (and two other ones over the year previously who rejoined TL) over how the project was being run and the lack of honoring the spirit of OSS. Take that for what it's worth. The good news is getting away from the negativity led to our productivity going way up, and we got more devs because of it. But you can pretend it was just me if that's what you're in to.
Before I left, OP had sold ~3000 CC3D which is more than 250k in revenue. Moving that kind of money you aren't a non-profit unless you are filing paperwork. (p.s. I'm not saying that Dave made money, he's terrible with it and very generous. But no one knows if it's a non-profit or not). A developer who tried to push for financial transparency was driven out of the project (which I'm embarrassed to admit I joined in but have since apologized). But sure, the cloners who pay an informal license fee to a 'non-profit' get preference then. All with no real documentation or official policy.
Personally I prefer how DIYD deals with these issues: send a takedown notice and explain to the community the distinction between trademarks and cc-by-sa, than vitriolic personal attacks and rants. I've also never seen Chris rant at anyone porting APM to VRBrain for example.
It's pretty ridiculous to at OP as some sort of model of how to treat clones. The attitude of the community for multiple years has been unbelievably resentful for them. I don't have the patience to find all the examples (most of which are in the closed section) of hatred against people doing _anything_ with OP related things that is outside the command of the god-janitor.
Take this http://forums.openpilot.org/topic/13432-diy-openpilot-based-flightc... - hating on someone for frigging developing support for a 15$ board you buy from ST when nothing else was available from OP. (a guy that ended up joining Tau Labs and becoming a great contributor).
Or this supportive thread http://forums.openpilot.org/topic/24877-55-usd-cc3d/page-3#entry218830 of this guy who was doing lots of work and making CC3D available more cheaply than anyone else has.
Or thousand of other rants.
It seems like the support for cloners is pretty inconsistent and concentrated on those who provide kickbacks like Tim (and then still with lots of smarky comments scattered around the forums still)... which is fine and a reasonable business strategy, but no justification to get on a high horse. Heck, they are selling and shipping Revos and haven't released any hardware files. How open is that? In fact, that fake open source mentality was one of the drivers behind most of the developers jumping ship and moving to an actual open project that supports people porting to whatever they want.
However, if you can point to the wiki link where OP published a how-to guide on starting your own clone manufacturing plant, please do. Otherwise it appears they OP follows an identical strategy of DIYD of publishing some of the the files sufficient to get going, and then dealing with the consequences. The difference being they don't have their own manufacturing center so require help from some favored cloners.
The simple truth is people are still trying to figure out how to make open-source hardware a viable strategy (or set of strategies) so there's no reason to be a dick about it when someone tries to stop someone doing something illegal. Heck, there's no reason to be a dick "oh it's opensource, fuck you right" when someone complains when people do stuff that's just straight up uncool.
@All: I just posted a comment here in response to the honourable gentleman Drone Savant, then accidentally deleted it. D'oh. If somebody can either repost the text, or PM me with it I will happily make it re-appear. Thx.
@Euan
Dear Euan, with the latest codes, Power modules adjust automaticly. with small variances from the linkage-batterie-connectors-load etc. altitude report depents on the sat count. but generally you are between standards for both. If you need any help regarding the setup. dont hesitate to send us email at info@ucandrone.com
Regards , Nikos Gerarchakis for Ucandrone
Chris: I agree that they should not copy without credit.
The ArduPilot/Copter/thing claims to be community created but it is not really clear who that community is. You are selling electrons and giving bytes away for free. Where are you getting your bytes from?
My choice would be to have a clear link to all contributors on the diyd front page and on every distributors webpage. If you were to put more obvious emphasis on the value of the community, less people would be tempted to copy or purchase copies. But this is your business, not mine.
ps. My developments don't contribute to ArduThing so I am not looking for credit. I just have respect for those that do contribute.
Naming it as "ArduPilot" was bad move by HK (now its changed to HKPilot) but on the other side it was HK that helped me get into RC hobby by offering low prices & multiple shipment options.
Today I'm a proud owner of genuine 3DR APM 2.5 and partially that credit goes to HK whose Crius AIOP clone introduced me to MegapirateNG. That led me to know about Ardupilot, APM 2.5 & 3DR. I found APM 2.5 at a local Sparkfun distributor and went straight for it because of its quality, simplicity & user-friendliness for patching up things like Power, GPS, Telemetry etc. Setting up was a breeze compared to 'other' FCs. Now looking forward to version 3.0 :)
3.0 baord should improve something and i don t see what we could have more for the moment than an apm 2.5..
only better processor could be improve it and for the moment the code is not ready for it(smt32)
so create a new baord will be an mistake..
on top of that diydrone has already created so many version than some people are not happy to see their new baby already old
Matthew: What is "ArduThing"? To be clear, nobody is asking for royalties or any money from HobbyKing. We just want them to respect the terms of the open source license and not steal our stuff without credit or sharing design files.
Many replies here assume this HK copy actually works, you're thinking how difficult can it be to copy. Well HK have proven they can stuff things up when they copy something and they continue selling it when OBVIOUSLY they know they are selling a KNOWN FAULTY product.
Examples;
AIO PRO, they modified the artwork for no good reason at all, knew it was worng and continued to sell until all stock of faulty boards was sold.
LEA-6H GPS, look in the files section for the ugly wiring that ahs to be done to correct the connections which they stuffed up, yet HK continue to sell that LEA-6H at a hefty price.
They know full well that to return their faulty item with tarcking will cost more than it is worth so they do this time and time again with impunity.
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