Posted by
Teejay on May 23, 2015 at 12:50am
I'm used to getting Pixhawks from the 3DR store and resellers - and it comes in the nice grey box. And it's the first time I've seen it packaged in the 3DR branded "white" Pixhawk box. The white Pixhawk was purchased somewhere in China. Is this an older (or newer) batch? Or is it a "knockoff"?
Comments
Both boxes are/were valid 3DR boxes at one point in time. The white was from early when the Pixhawk was being sold by 3DR. I had one of those boxes. Sometime last year, they changed over. Sounds a bit odd to me but we bought them all from 3DR and ended up with different boxes at some point. I'm sure at some point, they have copied the box over in China.
To be exact, the Pixhawk hardware specifications and PCB layout are freely available under a open hardware license. But the name Pixhawk is protected by trademark.
So you are totally free to make a board that is 100% compatible with the Pixhawk, but you are not free to use the Pixhawk name on the new board. This makes a lot of sense when you think about how 3DR spends a lot of money on staff, supporting the hardware they sell.
Hence my comment on certain distributors that can't even be bothered to change the silkscreen with a new name, when 'ripping' of the Pixhawk for a quick buck. Instead they wrongly (and most likely purposefully) use the Pixhawk name to generate more sales, and direct the users towards 3DR when anything goes wrong. Win-win for them I guess. It's easy to make cheap hardware when you don't have to support it.
@OG - What I meant was that. There may be vendors that manufacture and sell non-3DR Pixhawks (or APM's) and pack them in 3DR packaging and branding. And market them as official 3DR. I'm talking about the branding and packaging and not the Pixhawk itself as a "knockoff" since Pixhawk is available under the open hardware license.
Oh, and Nick appears to support his customers. You can actually talk to him.
Agree John. I like to seem some hardwear variations instead of pure copies. And I don't mind if they say "Pixhawk compatible" in the description. But it's wrong to use the name as it's copyrighted.
My new Goblin 380 has an AUAV-X2 on it, no way a Pixhawk would fit, that's why it's nice to have options.
And two of the three links you posted does exactly that. Break trademark by using the Pixhawk and PX4Flow brand names.
I am very pro open source and hardware, but sadly for some (most?) that means take what you want and never give back anything. Considering all the hard work you get for free, they could at least change the silkscreen and give the 'clone' a new name so that they at least follow the open-hardware license.
With all the other iterations of Pixhawk in the market - one cannot avoid being too cautious. Especially with direct-copy "knockoffs" (Where they copy EVERYTHING). Thanks for the feedback. :)
Yup. It is.
I think that's the older box?