Just came across this Pixhawk clone, so thought I would share.
http://witespyquad.gostorego.com/flight-controllers/rtfhawk-2-4.html
Ready to Fly Quads is a reputable distributor, and I have made a few purchases from them already. They already have a clone of the APM2.x, that has been somewhat successful. Will this new clone be just as good. for under $100USD, might be work a try.
Comments
adrian has right!
3dr need to respect all rules of open source project!
Users benefit because it helps 3DR to exist. If 3DR doesn't exist, the project will stall and die, just like others have before. So users benefit by having a company producing full-featured autopilots for about $200. If not for 3DR's existence, they would have to buy a $1000 alternative from an unresponsive, closed-source company.
What the benefit to me?
Well, I got into this project because I wanted a helicopter autopilot. My only option was a DJI Ace One Waypoint for $11,300 a pop. That's ridiculous. So I do my part, making the program work for helicopters, so that I can have access to all the features for $200 per instance. That's awesome.
VR has benefited from having access to the main Ardupilot code which runs on their board. For a while they had forked it, which was required to do the port for 32-bit. There would be no use for their board if there was no flight control code to run on it. Some of their work went into creating the HAL which allows Ardupilot to run on PX4. VR has also submitted some very helpful bug fixes, and functional improvements.
The benefit to VR, as I mentioned is having a basic flight control code to run on their boards. But even more than that, now that VR has produced a working HAL that fits into Trunk, it is or will be pulled into trunk. That will enable any of their customers to freely and easily compile code to run on VR hardware. I expect that they'll also be able to use MP to upload code.
They are part of the family, or part of the team.
It is not nonsense if you actually read what I wrote properly. I said intellectual work, not intellectual property. The OS license makes it not their property. But that doesn't mean that it was not their work that went into creating it! It took work to create that, and nobody does work without some benefit.
Kip, asking people to contribute back is not a breach of the license. Requiring people to contribute back would be. But nobody is making this a requirement. You can freely take the source code, do what you want with it (such as stripping out the OTP check) and redistribute it. Notice that nobody has sent you any lawyer's letter for what you've done.
Well, it probably was the OTP crap comment that set me off, and I got confused by all the people commenting. So, other than the OTP crap comment, you're right I can't find much you have said. Sorry about that, I'm human and get emotional too.
Absolutely not. As long as the arguments are founded in logic and fact, I'm happy to learn from other people proving I'm wrong.
Ok, good on you. So just as the previous thing, the comment may not apply to you, but others. And actually it was a question not a comment.
I also would not accept waking up one morning and finding this closed source, with a jacked up price and no benefit to me for my work. I would also quit immediately if that happened. I see no risk of that happening. I don't think this is where it's headed. This is something else, which I do agree with.
To the contrary in fact, I see people like Wytespy, RCTimer, etc. as being the ones are benefit from my work (and that of others obviously) without contributing back to me. RCTimer, Wytespy, UAVProducts, Hobby King or whoever, all make a profit on these things. They wouldn't be in business otherwise. But there's not a single benefit that flows back to me.
In fact, I've SUNK a whole lot of money into Hobby King, buying helicopters, which I crash while developing the code. And now they are selling boards which profit from that the fact that I spent money on their helicopters! That offends my moral sensibilities. That's why I react this way.
Because they are just making clones of 3DR's boards. It's really simple. The definition of a clone is something that is an exact copy of something else.
Nobody has ever called Roberto Navoni's boards clones. He makes functional differences. Something that would make somebody choose his board over 3DR's for reasons other than just price.
I also just noticed this while searching your posts on RCG:
http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2149124#post28123114
That is not a clone. You even called it a clone yourself! But I disagree. That is not a clone. They put effort into rearranging it into a different functional configuration. I'd actually like to have a look at one of those myself! If that little daughterboard is the IMU, and it's well suspended for vibration damping, that's epic. And then all built into a nice aluminum case with convenient connector locations... I've been wanting a board like that for a long time. I think the Pixhack is a really poor choice of name. It might be more fitting to call it the AwesomeHawk. :)
I see that you think $180 is too much. That tells me that you don't value the work that went into creating that design. That's why we're having this disagreement. That is a totally fair price for what they've done there.
Now, the license requirement is that CUAV needs release the design files of that board. That then allows somebody else (hopefully 3DR) to have a look at it, see what works, what doesn't work, maybe make some more functional improvements, and release something else even better.
That is how this ecosystem is supposed to work. It doesn't work when all we have is some companies doing nothing but making carbon copies of somebody else's work, with the only difference being that they are selling it cheaper because they haven't put any effort into it. Those guys will kill off the guys actually developing stuff, and then this whole thing dies.
Well sure they benefit and profit. That's the point I was making. We *know* that. We actually want them to profit, because if they don't, the whole project dies. It's just that simple.
I'm aware of only one developer who is quiting because of this issue. I'll miss him. But it's his free choice. He freely gave of his code to an open source project. He wants it to be gratis, not just libre. His work is still gratis, and libre, because the source code is available to all. But he disagrees with the direction the project has taken, and that's fine.
Maybe there are others who haven't spoken up, I don't know. Maybe others won't contribute in the future. That's un-knowable. But obviously the group that makes the decisions (and I'm not one of them, I'm just along for the ride) have determined that on balance, this is the best way to go. Figuring out how to make this project work is not easy.
Monroe: They can! And they already have. That is exactly the reason why these legal arguments that this somehow breaks the GNU license will fail. I would think that 3DR could even begin to charge for downloaded compiled binaries that 99% of the users are using (including clone users who download it from 3DR's services) if they wanted to, and that would be totally legal. As long as the source code is open and available to all, to fork or do with as they please, that should be totally legal.
Rob - you might be able to make a moral case if 3DR itself had not just contributed to, but also heavily benefited from the open source nature of the platforms involved. People not paid by 3DR contribute to their code - and in doing so improve the products, and thus improve 3DR's profitability. Just like makers of 'clone' hardware, 3DR profit from open source also.
You either subscribe to the legal framework of open source, or you don't. 3DR appear to currently be trying to put a boot in both camps and therein lies the tension we see in threads like this.
What is the relevance of this? Nobody is selling the software for money. And then even if they were, it's completely legal.
@Kipkool, similarly, I've seen some of the rude and insulting things you're written at RCG about the people who produce the software. For 3+ years, 3DR has been a partner in this project with us. For all that time, 3DR has been working hand-in-hand with developers around the world, who are interested in producing a full-featured autopilot that is accessible to all. For all that time, the price of the hardware has remained extremely reasonable.
I guess some people have different perceptions of what is reasonable and what is not. Some people seem to think that for some reason, the world owes them a free autopilot. Or one that is produced for little more than BOM cost. Unfortunately, the world just doesn't work that way. It's been tried, and it does not work. Without naming names, there are a couple of other open source autopilot systems available. And if you're wondering "Who?" well that just reinforces my point. They've gone absolutely nowhere.
Why don't these cloners produce hardware to work with those other projects? Because nobody is using them. Why is nobody using them? Because they don't work to an acceptable standard. And why is that? Because they haven't attracted productive developers. And they haven't attracted productive developers, because nobody is using them, and who wants to put time and effort into something that nobody is benefiting from.
Ardupilot is the classic case of "an overnight success, 5 years in the making". And 3DR has been a partner in that for those 5(ish) years. Every developer on the project understands that the only reason this project is where it is, is because there is a successful business running along-side us. We know that this does not work in an environment of pure, altruistic, hopey-changey do-goodery. It has to be backed by a strong business. And figuring out how to make a business model work in this difficult environment is not easy. But 3DR has done it. Yes, they make profit. But we think that producing an autopilot accessible to all, for about $200 is pretty darn good.
We're pretty happy that we have something that delivers performance similar or better than anything else on the market, at almost any price, used by 10,000+ people including hobbyists, students, non-profit environmental groups, emergency responders. It's why we do this. We're OK with 3DR making some money on this, because they are our partner, and we know this entire ecosystem wouldn't exist without them.
So maybe you can understand why this "us versus them" schism has evolved.
So somebody goes and sticks a few screen doors in the code. And you have to actually take the time to fork the code and strip that out, and maintain it yourself. 99.99% of the work has already been done for you, but all of the sudden you have to do some of the work yourself, and it's suddenly such a terrible thing? The very fact that it was so easy for you to strip that out, demonstrates that this is open source.
Several people have suggested that this COA thing is a breech of the open source license. I can only respond by quoting Richard Stallman.
For all the people expressing righteous indignation about this whole COA thing, I have to ask: How much time have YOU put into developing open source software?
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