On Fri, 19 May 2017 18:17:16 +0100 Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton lkcl@lkcl.net wrote:

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crowd-funded eco-conscious hardware: https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68

On Fri, May 19, 2017 at 4:49 PM, ronwirring@safe-mail.net wrote:

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Because a license prohibits it?

no.

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Because competitors can use them?

correct.

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Lkcl, have you asked tfirefly to give you the full schematics cad data?

no... because they would think i was a bit dumb. or worse, wanted to steal their business. i have no desire to piss them off.

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Because I got to think, you said tfirefly is withholding some schematics,

no i did not say that. it may be true but i would not have specifically said it. i may have said that *rockchip* has *not made available the reference design* which is a totally different matter.

you may have then thought "rockchip equals firefly".

please try not to make cross-connections and/or correlations that aren't actually the case.

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I wrote tfirefly asking them to email me the full schematics. Tfirefly never denied, that they had not made the full schematics public. They said, they could not disclose the full schematics. Maybe due to a lack of english skills on both sides.

no, you've just misunderstood their business model. please don't ask them again, it's not fair to ask them to make public something which will destroy their business model.

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Then what should you ask tfirefly for? Full schematics cad data?

absolutely nothing. you don't ask them for anything. they're a third party business - an OEM.

and we also can't ask rockchip either, because we're not going to order a million of their processors, cash up-front... *until* they have made full CAD data available.

classic catch 22 situation.

so instead we wait - as i specifically, specifically said - until rockchip's Reference Designs leak out onto the public internet and are available on e.g. taobao or other site, for sale for $25.

l.

So, how did the t-firefly group create their SOC if they could not get the CAD files?

Thanks, David