Comments

• 

  Jim February 17, 2012 at 1:46pm

  Awesome, thanks Chris. To my mind, that's all that matters. the rest is just detail ;)
• 3D Robotics

  Chris Anderson February 17, 2012 at 1:44pm

  Jim: the hardware is 100% open source. The Eagle files are in the product listings.  But by "3DR creates the hardware", I mean "manufactures".
• 

  Rob_Lefebvre February 17, 2012 at 1:13pm

  @Dara, I sent you a note, please accept my friend request and we'll discuss further. I may have a solution to your problems that you'll find better than UofT students. ;)  I'm curious to fully understand your situation.
• 

  Jim February 17, 2012 at 12:47pm

  Chris, can you just clarify?  "3DR creates the hardware" That sounds like the hardware is not opensource, is that right? Are the schematics for the boards available and free for people to fab on their own (as ardiuno is?) or would that be an copyright (or other) infringement of 3DR?

  Jim
• 3D Robotics

  Chris Anderson February 17, 2012 at 12:25pm

  Guys: I think that, despite some heated words and unfortunate deviations from our site policies (Civility first -- no personal attacks), this has been a constructive dialog where many good points have been raised, which I/we will take to heart.  A few facts/clarifications:

  I agree that the DIY Drones/3D Robotics distinctions have become blurred and we need to clarify them. Part of this is due to having outgrown some organizational models that were okay in the early days but aren't anymore, and part of this is due to the implicit "wave/particle duality" of Open Source Hardware. 

  There are two distinctions that matter most here:

  1. DIY Drones is a non-profit community. 3D Robotics is a for-profit company
  2. The DIY Drones community creates the software, which is free. 3D Robotics creates the hardware, which is sold.

  As for the first, we're just finishing a branding process that will give all the 3D Robotics stuff (including the store and packaging) its own logo. Here's a glimpse of that: 

  

  As for the second, the nature of open source hardware makes the tech support function unavoidably distributed. 3D Robotics has two full-time professionals who do hardware support (email them at help@3drobotics.com). But 3D Robotics didn't write the software, the DIY Drones dev teams did, so the software support needs to be done here, in these forums, by the community itself.

  I realize this is confusing for many people -- do I have a hardware problem or a software problem? -- but I'm not sure how to do it differently. These fuzzy boundaries are built in the very nature of open source hardware, and all of the other open source hardware projects, from Arduino to Makerbot, wrestle with the same domain issues.

  But just as was the case in open source software, the "how best to support free software?" issue has created a business opportunity for companies to come in to offer support and systems integration services. So firms like jDrones and uDrones and the many great distributors such as buildyourowndrone in the UK have risen to offer end-to-end support, bridging the hardware/software divide.  

  Over time, I hope our community will create more opportunities for our smart members to scratch their entrepreneurial itch in this way, which seems like a win for everyone involved. 
• Moderator

  Michael Pursifull February 17, 2012 at 10:52am

  All very valid, interesting points. It distresses me when someone is vocal about their sense of entitlement, clearly not appreciating the organizing principles of the community.  And there are the separate roles of the core contributors, the online community, the commercial stores who, through scaling, put their resources at risk to let a wider audience participate more easily, etc.

  However, there is no place for personal attacks. Not because personal attacks cannot be tolerated, or because free speech should be censored, but because the community has a set of published standards.

  Two of the eleven "rules" cover this as explicitly as can be stated: http://diydrones.com/profiles/blog/show?id=705844:BlogPost:17789
• Developer

  Doug Weibel February 17, 2012 at 10:35am

  Jay - I agree with you 100%, except....

  Chris and Jordi bring a lot of this on themselves.  Sorry Chris, thats just my opinion/observation.  DIYDrones Store - AKA 3DRobotics - is a business with a business model touted at one time of simply being that they fabricate open source hardware used by the DIYDrones community.  All the hardware you can go off and fab on your own, if you wish, or some other company can build it and sell it as well.  However, they do a great job of building it and supplying it at an attractive price, so they sell lots.  The problem is that they have not maintained a separation of identity or clearly stuck to that business model.  The fact that their website/marketing looks a lot more like they are selling products that they support than that they just build open source hardware, and that they do in fact provide some level of support is the reason that some percentage of folks have the expectation that they are buying a commercial product. 

  I don't care if 3DR is simply an open source fabricator with no responsibility beyond quality assembly, or if they want to go beyond that.  The irritation and friction comes from people like Brian tossing criticism at the open source community and assuming that the open source community and 3DR are the same thing, and that happens because 3DR is not clear about communicating what their business model is.

  If you are a community member and don't like people like Bryan and his comments, ignore him.  Personally I care even less than Sgt Rick if Brian leaves the community or not.  He is certainly not my customer.  I don't have customers.  I develop autopilots for fun. 
• Moderator

  Sgt Ric February 17, 2012 at 10:32am

  @Jay is 100% correct!

  This community began as a group of hobbiests interested in tinkering and exploring new technologies involved in model stabilization and auto-pilots. 

  Soon several persons decided to get together and purchase parts in bulk and offer these to the community.

  It seems this has grown to the point where people are expecting more and more from those few running the "store".

  They expect someone to hold their hand and do evcerything for them, or they expect hourly updates on backorders when Jordi and his crew are probably so busy trying to fill those backorders that I am sure they rarely got to see their families.

  As Jay pointed out, this is a DIY community, not WalMart where you can berate the staff.
• 

  T.D. Gonzales February 17, 2012 at 10:23am

  @Brian:

  The documentation is there... It's called source code, diffs, changelogs, and checkin logs. I have been able to follow this project even though I haven't had the time to fly for months. Lots of sim time though. 
  
  It takes a lot more than just mouse skills to contribute to this project. 
• 

  Jay Bryon February 17, 2012 at 10:14am

  DIY doesn't have customers, inherently and by definition.  Expecting to be a customer of a DIY project is basically "not getting it".  

  If you want to be a customer, fine, do that with a finished product, they are out there.  As far as I can tell, the DIY drones community has been working their asses off doing really hard stuff, to make things easier for people who are willing to also put in effort but can't focus their entire lives on this one project.  

  You can choose to participate or not, spend your money or not.  Expecting to be a CUSTOMER is a level of entitlement that is not warranted, nor should be. 

  It is in fact part of the mindset that is from the corporate model of consumerism, and so deeply habituated into our culture that it's not surprising that this is a big issue.  But part of the whole point of DIY is to get away from that and expand yourself beyond the comfortable consumer, at least when you're involved with DIY.  (I'm a very comfortable consumer of things I don't ever intend to build, like insurance or my next car).  

  I am deliberately not pointing this at any one person, but if it makes you angry, then sit back for a minute and think about why.  Do the most difficult thing and take a hard look at your own attitudes.  I do regularly, and I catch myself doing silly things too, but at least I catch it some of the time.  

  Happy skies people-

  -J