[Discuss] is intel edison open-source hardware?

Fri Mar 6 22:55:01 UTC 2015

Please email me directly: seth.e.hunter at intel.com<mailto:seth.e.hunter at intel.com>  and I will present these issues to each of the groups managing the projects – I’ve reached out to most of the teams – and will continue to do so over the next four months – the goal being to make sure in future if they call something OSHW that it is – by the OSHWA standards. It makes sense from so many standpoints to do so because their goal is to get more makers using Intel SOC’s and understand that many of these new markets are founded in more accessible dev platforms like arduino.  The reason they are working directly with Arudino is because it’s very difficult to transform and industrial culture that serves OEMs into one serves individual and distributed developers – but I things are shifting.

I’m super sensitive and passionate about this because I come from arts/tech and MIT where most of my work was bolstered by projects like OF/processing/arduino etc.   and learning as I go how influence large orgs. (100K + people)

Seth

From: discuss-bounces at lists.oshwa.org [mailto:discuss-bounces at lists.oshwa.org] On Behalf Of Nancy Ouyang
Sent: Friday, March 06, 2015 2:17 PM
To: The Open Source Hardware Association Discussion List
Subject: Re: [Discuss] is intel edison open-source hardware?

Basically, I just want them to either stop using OSHW label or release their files. I would prefer if they complied with OSHW, but if they decide to drop the label instead it is no loss to me.

That is what I mean in terms of "possible backlash" -- I would spend time evaluating and promoting their product if it was actually OSHW, and if they are not OSHW then I am not their target customer. Mixing the signals and using OSHW to tell me I might be interested in checking it out, and wasting my time when I discover they lied about being OSHW, will make me want to generate bad press in retaliation.

I am not being paid to distill customer feedback into actionable business strategy dossiers for them. It's fine if they consider my blog "noise" and ignore it and only pay attention to your thoughtful letter which words it in terms of the business cost to them. It is only my loss if it inflames them and they not only drop OSHW label on this one already existing project, but also decide against committing to OSHW over the long term.

I am using it to vent and show that other people (presumably in their target market, although as I said I can't really tell due to the mixed signals) agree with me. If someone at Intel who is being paid to market products to us by using words like "arduino" and "open source hardware" can't take our feedback and decide what to do with that, then someone is not doing their job correctly.

I do not know the difference between free software and open source software. I assume "OSS" is more business-friendly. I don't particularly care and certainly hope that OSHW does not split in a similarly confusing manner (distinguishing "free hardware" vs "open-source hardware" would just be exasperating).

~~~
narwhaledu.com<http://narwhaledu.com>, educational robots<http://gfycat.com/ExcitableLeanAkitainu> [[<(._.)>]] my personal blog<http://www.orangenarwhals.com>, orangenarwhals
arvados.org<http://arvados.org> (open source software for provenance, reproducing, and scaling your analyses)

On Fri, Mar 6, 2015 at 4:30 PM, Matt Maier <blueback09 at gmail.com<mailto:blueback09 at gmail.com>> wrote:
"What I want to avoid is inflammatory rants directed at large organizations...I’m happy to help convey recommendations in a clear and concise way directly to each of these groups through the Advisory Panel " - Seth

"It is good to know Intel has good intentions, however please relay to them that this is not getting across...I do not think it will stop me from publishing it in a frustrated and venting tone" - Nancy

An important thing to understand about large organizations is that when they "speak" they represent an official, considered opinion that has to work for a lot of people for a long time. The smaller the organization (down to one person) the easier it is to say any old random thing because it's just easier to speak for one person than for lots of people. So, by extension, since that's how large organizations "speak" it's also what they're "listening" for. They don't have any way to use the random opinions of one person, particularly when they're more an expression of emotion than a statement of fact. It's just "noise" because the large organization is "listening" for something that sounds like a reasonable conclusion arrived at after analysis and consensus because that's the only raw material that can be processed through the bureaucracy of a large organization.

For example, "open source them or risk backlash" is just noise (at best) to a large organization. Something more like "there is a growing consensus among the Maker community that vendors should only be allowed to setup booths at events after their product is compared to the OSHW definition" would be a lot more likely to find an audience (BTW, I'm not sure if that's true I just made it up as an example). The latter approach sounds like somebody did their research, analyzed their observations, and provided an actionable conclusion. It's something that a person at a large organization might be willing to show their boss.

Another example, really the meat of your letter, is exemplified by "anything else someone would need to fork or contribute to your project." This is getting right at the heart of the disconnect which is that large organizations don't understand why they should do that. From their perspective, they have to spend their resources on extra activities that slow down their delivery time AND help their competitors; two things that they know down in their metaphorical bones they should not do. What we need to do in hardware, just as happened in software 10-20 years ago, is gradually introduce large organizations to an alternative way of doing business that is friendlier to our priorities.

That exact discussion is what split the free software community in two and produced the open source software community. It's entirely possible that the same basic difference of opinion could split the open source hardware community as some people stick to less-business-friendly priorities and some people adopt more-business-friendly priorities.

If we want large organizations, which only understand Business (imagine the capital B wearing a nice suit and staring out over a city skyline), to meet us halfway then we have to give sympathetic parties inside of the large organizations material they can use to gradually sway opinion and eventually justify different investments. It makes more sense to direct the impassioned letters to the community itself and produce more dispassionate letters to direct at large organizations.

On Fri, Mar 6, 2015 at 12:44 PM, Nancy Ouyang <nancy.ouyang at gmail.com<mailto:nancy.ouyang at gmail.com>> wrote:
Seth, your reporting something more functional to Intel sounds good. I do not understand large corporations at all, and it sounds like you will be more effective at getting these things to happen at Intel. It is good to know Intel has good intentions, however please relay to them that this is not getting across, from an outsider perspective all I see is this trend of large corporations co-opting "OSHW" for their own needs (basically, marketing) unrelated to the actual point of OSHW (as demonstrated by the tendency to pay lip service to OSHW and apply the label willy-nilly).

I am still going to vent these frustrations on my own blog / whatever and the tone may be confrontational. In your mind, would this letter (openly addressed to them on some random dinky blog but not hand-delivered to them so to speak) still have the detrimental effect of "inflammatory rants directed at large organizations with sarcasm".especially if a lot of people concur with my feelings? I do not think it will stop me from publishing it in a frustrated and venting tone, since I think it is important to voice our frustrations, but I would have to take it into consideration.

Also, please explain to me which part of the letter is coming across as sarcastic. I am not being sarcastic, I am wording sincerely what I feel strongly about, and that appears to be malformed in the written text. I re-read the letter and I mean every single thing on their that I said, although I agree it is not the most political way to word it.

Thanks,
--Nancy

~~~
narwhaledu.com<http://narwhaledu.com>, educational robots<http://gfycat.com/ExcitableLeanAkitainu> [[<(._.)>]] my personal blog<http://www.orangenarwhals.com>, orangenarwhals
arvados.org<http://arvados.org> (open source software for provenance, reproducing, and scaling your analyses)

On Fri, Mar 6, 2015 at 3:11 PM, Hunter, Seth E <seth.e.hunter at intel.com<mailto:seth.e.hunter at intel.com>> wrote:
Hi Guys,

A small group of us at Intel initiated and Advisory Panel this year to provide resources to decision makers in the product groups that are developing Galileo, Edison, Curie, Minnowboard – if you look at each of these products they are each releasing different documentation formats – one of the goal we have is to try and generate awareness around OSH protocols, and second to put policies in place for future products with clear guidelines. The process to make this happen involves more than letter writing or forum posting – although these do reach folks. IMO its about building trust and understanding through discussion – just as this group has done for years – and to understand the protocols for change within large organizations.

Intel is the largest contributor at the moment to the Linux Foundation – and the culture here is very receptive to transferring many of the open protocols from software to hardware. What I want to avoid is inflammatory rants directed at large organizations with sarcasm – because I want avoid any dismissal of the OSH community and global maker movement – which have great potential to transform manufacturing in the long tail. They want to be an enabler in developer communities – but they are only used to working with OEM developers so this is a new space for the organization.

I’m happy to help convey recommendations in a clear and concise way directly to each of these groups through the Advisory Panel – as an MIT alum but also as someone who has built some trust with these groups.

Best,
Seth

-------------
Seth Hunter
Research Scientist at Intel Labs
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From: discuss-bounces at lists.oshwa.org<mailto:discuss-bounces at lists.oshwa.org> [mailto:discuss-bounces at lists.oshwa.org<mailto:discuss-bounces at lists.oshwa.org>] On Behalf Of Nancy Ouyang
Sent: Friday, March 06, 2015 4:52 AM

To: The Open Source Hardware Association Discussion List
Subject: Re: [Discuss] is intel edison open-source hardware?

I agree, galileo: drop oshw or release altium. edison: fine, never claimed to be open source.

Digressing as well
I am hoping as an MIT alum that my letter (with many people's signatures) will have some clout with solidworks' founderperson and they will fix their pricing model. even better if they figure out that they can compete with autodesk 123D for our attention by making an open-source competitor :P

crowdfund OSS... I did not reaad closely, but this<http://blog.felixbreuer.net/2013/04/24/crowdfunding-for-open-source.html> (2013)
Crowdfunding projects need contributions from both rational and altruistic backers to raise large amounts of money.

, there is this<https://freedomsponsors.org/> site but seems ghosttown. yea, i don't think anything exists really. I think in some sense it's more a one-to-one thing I am hoping for, like poor-mans-philanthropy rather than masses of hopeful end-users and a developer who might have life issues and disappear. (i was going to use openshot as example, but he just reappeared<http://www.openshotvideo.com/?bloglink-header> after a 7 months). idk i think the solution rather is for me to sell out, get rich, and fund OSS with less care about my hard-earned 10k going to waste :)

IMHO Big sponsors controlling direction for whatever project is fine, there are many big company sponsored open source software in use everywhere. Take AngularJS, which was developed on google money and time.

~~~
narwhaledu.com<http://narwhaledu.com>, educational robots<http://gfycat.com/ExcitableLeanAkitainu> [[<(._.)>]] my personal blog<http://www.orangenarwhals.com>, orangenarwhals
arvados.org<http://arvados.org> (open source software for provenance, reproducing, and scaling your analyses)

On Fri, Mar 6, 2015 at 7:21 AM, Mastro Gippo <gipmad at gmail.com<mailto:gipmad at gmail.com>> wrote:
Ok, now I see the Solidworks thing, but I think that you will have to take that matter with MIT, not with SW! :) That is another matter entirely, and I think that it's one of the main reasons open software usually lags behind: it's hard to motivate people with anything other than money (and sex maybe). So you'll get a good open software only if someone pays for that (but then it hardly remains open), or if a group is completely obsesed with that and has the right knowledge to make it. That makes me think, if there are people like you that would give money to develop a project, is there a crowdfunding website that specializes on free software? The big problem I see with that, is that big sponsors will want to control the direction of the development. Well, I'm digressing.
I think I made some confusion on the names; I was thinking about the Edison. Oddly enough, they don't make open hardware claims on that: http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/do-it-yourself/edison.html
By the way, are we ok with GPS and GSM black boxes and not with Edison? I think that if Intel released the design files for the Edison's breakout board, that would put them on par with the Arduino: after all, we don't have the internal design files for the ATMEGA328 either.
About the Galilelo, they should just drop the OSHW claim and be done with that (or release files, but I think that's unlikely).

2015-03-06 12:48 GMT+01:00 Nancy Ouyang <nancy.ouyang at gmail.com<mailto:nancy.ouyang at gmail.com>>:
Hmm, I never got around to finishing it :D thanks for your thoughts.

I would be 100% fine with Intel releasing their Altium files. That would meet the agreed definition of OSHW. Altium being hella expensive and the non-inter-compatilbility and closed-source world of circuit CAD files is a related but separate issue in my opinion.

Okay, what I didn't get around to writing down in a concise manner was basically the thought that, with companies like github and tindie, it is more okay (altho not ideal) because at least they depend on us as much as we depend on them.

re: explaining the backlash, it is kind of rooted in suspicion of how big companies will pour time and effort into "new markets", offer closed source products, and those projects can get axed on a whim because business people decided the "risky new venture" did not end up making money for the shareholders/CEO. So I think that it is very not ideal for Autodesk to spend hella money on a closed-source 123D, it can become better than current open-source tools for teachers / education, everyone will adopt it, and then 10 years later when they graduate they are in a world of pain. Or 2 years later Autodesk can stop hosting 123D and axe the project, and everyone will have useless files they can't do anything with, or worse their designs are just gone.

That is where solidworks comes in. I graduated from MIT, which gets plyed with hella free Solidworks because it was cofounded by some MIT alum, and trying to pay for solidworks after graduating made me exceptionally unhappy.*

I do admit I probably have an anti-big-corporation streak after doing my 1120s for my startup as well. :o I am not sure I could remove that bent and still feel inspired to write this piece. It seems more like a factual statement of the fact that there is backlash, to me.

* I would be in fact be willing to donate half my income this year so that someone suitably talented could work on an open-source alternative to solidworks full-time. parametric CAD and also a more sculpty option (perhaps built on wings 3d). that is how important it is. sadly i don't have the technical chops nor willpower to work on one thing for that long to do it myself.

~~~
narwhaledu.com<http://narwhaledu.com>, educational robots<http://gfycat.com/ExcitableLeanAkitainu> [[<(._.)>]] my personal blog<http://www.orangenarwhals.com>, orangenarwhals
arvados.org<http://arvados.org> (open source software for provenance, reproducing, and scaling your analyses)

On Fri, Mar 6, 2015 at 6:28 AM, Mastro Gippo <gipmad at gmail.com<mailto:gipmad at gmail.com>> wrote:
Hi everybody, I'm all in for OSHW and I hate anyone using the image of a community to promote stuff, but I didn't like the tone of the letter. I don't think that threatening people is a good way to get what we want. From what I see here, no one batted an eye when people agreed that GPS, GSM and all sort of modules are ok to use on OSHW designs, even if they are black boxes, but now we're bashing Intel for the same thing.
I think that even if Intel released their Altium design files, they would still be borderline compliant because Altium is commercial, so why bother? Sure, they could have designed it with kicad, but IMHO kikad is not complete enough for Intel's (industrial) designs (or else everyone would use it and Altium would go bankrupt).
So, given the GPS module "agreement", I think that Intel could just release the docking boards design files to be able to say that they are compliant.
I don't understand the point of the footnote either; what's the matter with Solidworks in this discussion??? Am I missing something? Aren't they free to make a commercial product and sell it?

2015-03-06 4:42 GMT+01:00 Jeffrey Warren <jeff at publiclab.org<mailto:jeff at publiclab.org>>:

+1 w Nancy and +1 letter!

(Hi Seth!)
On Mar 5, 2015 8:23 PM, "Nancy Ouyang" <nancy.ouyang at gmail.com<mailto:nancy.ouyang at gmail.com>> wrote:
Re: Galileo, Why can't they just stay away from the words "open source hardware"? I don't understand what's so blinking hard about that.

I'm fine with Edison being closed-source and Intel protecting something they spent a lot of resources on. That's because they don't claim it's open source hardware.

Sure, I'm drafting a letter. I'm working on etherpad and will ask for help editing soon.
http://etherpad.mit.edu/p/oshw-may-2015

~~~
narwhaledu.com<http://narwhaledu.com>, educational robots<http://gfycat.com/ExcitableLeanAkitainu> [[<(._.)>]] my personal blog<http://www.orangenarwhals.com>, orangenarwhals
arvados.org<http://arvados.org> (open source software for provenance, reproducing, and scaling your analyses)

On Thu, Mar 5, 2015 at 8:12 PM, Hunter, Seth E <seth.e.hunter at intel.com<mailto:seth.e.hunter at intel.com>> wrote:
Hi Everyone,

Here are the Edison Source files they provide: http://www.intel.com/support/maker/edison.htm   The Edison unit is closed – but everything around it should be well documented. I think the reason is that the SOC and Edison package is a 9 layer board and the Tangier team spent a long time turning a mobile phone SOC and the Broadcom Wifi/Bluetooth into a small unit that could be integrated with products in a modular way.

What I want to figure out is if you can convert an Allegro and Orcad files into a format that makers can work with.

Regarding Galileo here is what I could find:
Galileo gen 1: https://communities.intel.com/community/makers/galileo/documentation/galileodocuments
Galileo gen 1 reference design: http://downloadmirror.intel.com/24514/eng/Galileo%20Reference%20Design.zip  (its in a format called brd)
Galileo gen 2: https://communities.intel.com/community/makers/galileo/documentation/intel-galileo-gen-2-development-board-documents

What’s weird is that at one point I downloaded the board files for Galileo Gen 1 to try and understand if makers/developers could use them to go to product with the Quark SOC – and they were on the web and easy to find.

I don’t work directly with the software groups that make these boards but I’ve gotten to know their org fairly well. We are trying to find a way to gently push them towards OSH standards. If folks can send me feedback about this I’ll gather it together to see where these products are with regard to the checklists – I’m not sure if anyone has ever done this… but it would be useful to present that information to the right people and I know the right channels I think.

Seth Hunter

-------------
Seth Hunter
PhD, MIT Media Lab - Research Scientist at Intel Labs
website<http://www.perspectum.com/>  |  inspiration<http://arplay.tumblr.com/> |  life<http://flickr.com/photos/sethismyfriend/>
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From: discuss-bounces at lists.oshwa.org<mailto:discuss-bounces at lists.oshwa.org> [mailto:discuss-bounces at lists.oshwa.org<mailto:discuss-bounces at lists.oshwa.org>] On Behalf Of Nancy Ouyang
Sent: Thursday, March 05, 2015 4:39 PM
To: The Open Source Hardware Association Discussion List
Subject: Re: [Discuss] is intel edison open-source hardware?

sorry, the galileo. i couldn't figure out from the web if Intel claims edison is open-source or not, but a friend told me it wasn't.

~~~
narwhaledu.com<http://narwhaledu.com>, educational robots<http://gfycat.com/ExcitableLeanAkitainu> [[<(._.)>]] my personal blog<http://www.orangenarwhals.com>, orangenarwhals
arvados.org<http://arvados.org> (open source software for provenance, reproducing, and scaling your analyses)

On Thu, Mar 5, 2015 at 7:36 PM, Nancy Ouyang <nancy.ouyang at gmail.com<mailto:nancy.ouyang at gmail.com>> wrote:
http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/do-it-yourself/galileo-maker-quark-board.html

Providing users with a fully open source hardware and software development environment, the Intel Galileo Gen 2 board complements and extends the Arduino line of product

10 clicks in all I found was a PDF of the schematic. http://www.intel.com/support/galileo/sb/CS-035168.htm

While better than nothing, that certainly doesn't fulfill the definition:

"The hardware must be released with documentation including design files, and must allow modification and distribution of the design files. "
"These are the original source files that you would use to make modifications to the hardware’s design. The act of sharing these files is the core practice of open-source hardware."
http://www.oshwa.org/definition/

Just checking if someone knows better than me what's going on here.
~~~
narwhaledu.com<http://narwhaledu.com>, educational robots<http://gfycat.com/ExcitableLeanAkitainu> [[<(._.)>]] my personal blog<http://www.orangenarwhals.com>, orangenarwhals
arvados.org<http://arvados.org> (open source software for provenance, reproducing, and scaling your analyses)

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