On Wed, Nov 5, 2014 at 8:17 PM, Nico Rikken nico@nicorikken.eu wrote:
Great news!
I'm already notifying my friends about this.
great.
In that regard: how 'open' and 'free' is the EOMA68 standard?
it's open: anyone may implement interoperable variants, however due to the risk of physical injury if someone gets the implementation wrong it would be highly irresponsible of me not to go after anyone that gets the standard wrong.
is that a reasonable and responsible thing to do, do you think? to protect people from potential harm?
I have seen many specs
there is only one and there will only ever be one place, and it's here: http://elinux.org/Embedded_Open_Modular_Architecture/EOMA-68
and details on the elinux wiki, on the rhombus-tech website and on this mailinglist (so open), but I also remember a few emails about 'EOMA Compliancy' around the 27th of May this year (how free?). I then mentioned the Arduino model and am curious if any decisions have been made on this point.
it's very simple: i am the guardian of the EOMA standards and i *will* not let the standards either be brought into disrepute nor let people come to harm through incompetent 3rd party implementation. it is completely irrelevant whether they are open hardware teams or proprietary companies.
this is *mass volume*. it's intended for kids toys, day-to-day electronics and for use by grandma, your parents, and the average teenager. as such i have a duty of responsibility to protect such people and there is absolutely nothing that anyone can say which will convince me *not* to take that responsibility extremely seriously.
the arduino model expects the end-user to be an educated and responsible electronics expert, and the volumes of sales are a fraction of those for which EOMA68 has been designed. the chances therefore of someone killing themselves or others around them through the incompetence of a third party hardware implementer are really quite remote, but that is NOT the case with the EOMA68 standards.
so i will not charge a royalty for open hardware implementations but i *WILL* expect them to go through a proper and full Certification process. statistically the risks are simply far too great to permit anything else.
now, if this was a project that was of similar scope (comparatively limited) and reach (comparatively limited) to the Arduino project [an electronics hobbyist project], then their model would be relevant.
so - is that now clear?
l.