Paul, >However, I really do need to be convinced that this is a good thing... OK, let me try. You've expressed a number of concerns: 1. Abuse mitigation 2. Perception management 3. The business case Regarding abuse mitigation - I think hobbyists would be happy to sign a document promising to upgrade to a commercial license if their use of the product led in a for-profit direction. I would. It might, however, be costly to administer. You could also require proof of membership in an established hobby group. The Dallas Personal Robotics Group (autonomous, not remote control oriented robots) has a membership page on their website - http://www.dprg.org/members.html. Most established groups have a similar way to verify membership as it's not new to offer discounts to club members. This approach would, however, lock out some legitimate but unaffiliated intense hobbyists. But we can't complain if that's the route you take. Regarding perception management. I don't think it's a big issue. Your own perception of Introl seems mostly due to your knowledge of their failure and that the move was a desperation measure. It was particularly desperate if they were needing to get real immediate revenue from the hobby market - it just isn't there. In your case, it's known that crossworks is doing well. If you decide to support the hobbyist market, it'll be seen as a sign of strength, you can commit to a move that has insignificant immediate benefit, but could have a longer term payoff. You can afford to invest in good will. Regarding the business case. I'd think of it as developing long-term market potential and brand recognition more than direct revenue. In the robot hobbyist culture, folks can't afford traditional high-end development environments, much as we desire them. In fact, the availability of a suitable development environment is the most restrictive factor in moving to newer microcontrollers like the ARM family. I'm certain that 32bit microcontrollers have many advantages over the PICs and AVRs most used for autonomous robots, and I'm eager to lead us in that direction. If DPRG had a couple of licenses for use in our lab (we have a dedicated warehouse with a number of machines for programming where members meet at least weekly), then more folks would become aware of the possibilities. But they'd still need access to the discussed hobbyist license so they could take their work home and really commit to the switch. Some will still go the gnuarm route either for a totally free solution or because of open-source religion, but most of us would be drooling to use a truly professional environment. Regarding potential. Many of these folks will remain hobbyists, but some will move on to become professionals in the field. It's happened many times at DPRG. We have about 60 members right now, but hundreds more worldwide participate on our list. Seattle Robotics is even bigger and there are numerous other significant groups in this one hobby alone. A very large percentage of us are programmers or electrical engineers. It wouldn't hurt to develop a reputation among this crowd. And ultimately it will lead to commercial conversion sales. Possibly at a similar rate that your educational license does. It'll also lead to a larger base of shared code examples written for your environment. It's an investment in momentum. It's also reasonable to expect that you might limit costs by limiting support (telephone and email - something worth paying for in for-profit settings) for this license. I'd still hope that you would offer free minor version upgrades and forum-based support. I'd also suggest targeting $99 US as the price tag - 3 figures throw up a real mental block for most hobbyists. These individuals are not in the same category as educational institutions. So that's my spiel. Best wishes, Karim Virani -----Original Message----- From: lpc2000@lpc2... [mailto:lpc2000@lpc2...]On Behalf Of Paul Curtis Sent: Thursday, November 24, 2005 3:41 PM To: lpc2000@lpc2... Subject: RE: [lpc2000] Problems with olimex (wiggler) jtag and olimex lpc2129 proto board Simon, > Paul, > could you do a 'reduced speed' version at a lower price? Just > a thought. That doesn't really address the root problems of the Hobbyist License. Our Educational License software is identical to the Commercial License software, only difference being the use that is made of it. We have given a number of licenses to worthy users absolutely free of charge so they can pursue projects that may or may not make money--on the understanding that if the project starts coining it, then a license is purchased. This has worked well for us. But this is different from the Hobbyist License which is just a "I want to tinker" license. I would like to help hobbyists, for sure, as we have done for university and research work with our very generous educational discounts (they are just 20% of our commercial prices). The educational licenses have been very popular, being taken up by a wide range of universities and research institutes around the world. The problems are as I stated, a hobbyist license is open to abuse by companies masquerading as hobbyists and also the perception of squeezing the last drop of money out of our customer base by offering hobbyists licenses to prop up sales. I can't see how to resolve the hobbyist license other than by having the hobbyist sign a document (as CadSoft do for example). And we don't need revenue from hobbyists because CrossWorks is successful enough on its own. We have had endless conversations about the hobbyist license here and although I'd like to be philanthropic and introduce such a license, the last throes of Introl hoping hobbyists would help prop up the company is strongly implanted in my mind. So, tell me how can I be persuaded on this? My leaning would be to introduce a hypothetical "hobbyist license" at, say, 99 and require the user to sign an undertaking of no commercial use. However, I really do need to be convinced that this is a good thing... Regards, -- Paul Curtis, Rowley Associates Ltd http://www.rowley.co.uk CrossWorks for MSP430, ARM, AVR and now MAXQ processors > > Hi, > > > Yes - I went back to the original modern laptop and it works > > with Rowley! Must've had something off on the parallel port > > on the older system (though I can use it for other > > bidirectional, non ecp applications). Still can't use the > > newer system with IAR or OCDCommander - it doesn't even > > recognize the wiggler. At least I know the jtag hardware works. > > > > So Rowley works like a dream - I can connect via the wiggler, > > I can download and I can set hardware breakpoints and debug > > from flash in it. Goes back to the old price problem for > > hobbyists. Maybe they'll sell me an academic licence. > > We have considered a low-cost Hobbyist license, but this > opens us up to > abuse of our licensing terms. I also have the very real > concern that > this would be perceived as a "Well, they must be in > trouble, trying to > squeeze the hobbyist market to make ends meet..." Introl introduced > hobbyist licenses just before they went south for winter and stayed > there. I would really need to be persuaded that a hobbyist > license is a > viable product. > > > The other problem is that there are many fewer examples. > > Pardon? We support a wider range of boards than IAR do > with examples > for each one of them. In the v1.6 release it will be even wider. > > > There's > > no complete set of header files and examples for the olimex > > 2129 proto board like there are in IAR. > > What specific example does IAR provide in the EW package for the > E2124/9? We supply header files for the LPC2129. The > LPC-E2124/9 has a > port of uIP that I did on our website. > > -- > Paul Curtis, Rowley Associates Ltd http://www.rowley.co.uk > CrossWorks for MSP430, ARM, AVR and now MAXQ processors > SPONSORED LINKS Microprocessor Microcontrollers Pic > microcontrollers > 8051 microprocessor > -------------------------- > ---------------- > YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS > > a.. > -------------------------- > ---------------- > > > ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor > --------------------~--> > Get fast access to your favorite Yahoo! Groups. Make Yahoo! > your home page > http://us.click.yahoo.com/dpRU5A/wUILAA/yQLSAA/dN_tlB/TM > -------------------------- > ------~- > Yahoo! Groups Links Yahoo! Groups Links

An Engineer's Guide to the LPC2100 Series

Michael, > Is it possible to run Airdrop (after some modifications) on > an SD Wlan card? I'm sure it is. If you are a member of the AirDrop Yahoo! hroup, then you'll have seen that some people are working on using SDIO. The AirDrop itself doesn't have an SD connector, so that hardware platform is not likely to help you. > Adrop has a top priority on my to do list, but I don't like > compact flash cards. A SD card is so much easier to work with. The WiFi adapters that are readily available are all SDIO as far as I can tell. There was some e-mails on the AirDrop group about publicly-available information on SD/SDIO. However, concensus was that you'd probably need to stump up the cash to become a member of the SDIO club. I'm not sure how far that will get you because the SDIO interface is one thing, the way to access the chipset/firmware is another which may require vendor support. The nice thing about the CF cards available is they all use one or other of the two available chipsets, and a lot of work has been put into the AirDrop PRISM drivers by quite a number of people, so that does work. Regards, -- Paul Curtis, Rowley Associates Ltd http://www.rowley.co.uk CrossWorks for MSP430, ARM, AVR and now MAXQ processors

Paul Is it possible to run Airdrop (after some modifications) on an SD Wlan card? Adrop has a top priority on my to do list, but I don't like compact flash cards. A SD card is so much easier to work with. Cheers Michael >From: "Paul Curtis" <plc@plc@...> >Reply-To: lpc2000@lpc2... >To: <lpc2000@lpc2...> >Subject: RE: [lpc2000] Problems with olimex (wiggler) jtag and olimex >lpc2129 proto board >Date: Fri, 25 Nov 2005 10:52:13 -0000 >I believe uIP is now used in a number of commercial products and I'd say >that it isn't just for a hobby market. I have uIP running on an EDTP >AirDrop-A with a WiFi driver I wrote and integrated into uIP so I can >telnet into the AVR wirelessly and run my NetBASIC interpreter on it. > >-- >Paul Curtis, Rowley Associates Ltd http://www.rowley.co.uk >CrossWorks for MSP430, ARM, AVR and now MAXQ processors

Joel, > > > What sort of through put are you able to sustain with your > > > code on this board? > > > > Good question, never bothered to test it. Note that uIP has some > > restrictions and doesn't interoperate well with delayed-ACK > > implementations as uIP can only have a single segment in > flight at any > > one time. If you don't understand this implication, you'll > need to have > > a look at a good book on Internet protocols or the RFCs. > > Yes, yes I'm aware of all the latter. I'm just looking for a > rough unit of > measure; To determine if it might be applicable in a > commercial product. > Perhaps it's a better fit for the hobby market? I believe uIP is now used in a number of commercial products and I'd say that it isn't just for a hobby market. I have uIP running on an EDTP AirDrop-A with a WiFi driver I wrote and integrated into uIP so I can telnet into the AVR wirelessly and run my NetBASIC interpreter on it. -- Paul Curtis, Rowley Associates Ltd http://www.rowley.co.uk CrossWorks for MSP430, ARM, AVR and now MAXQ processors

Hi Paul I think your free licences requests will explode after this email ;-) I am also thinking to take heart to send one. Cheers Michael >From: "Paul Curtis" <plc@plc@...> >Reply-To: lpc2000@lpc2... >To: <lpc2000@lpc2...> >Subject: RE: [lpc2000] Re: Problems with olimex (wiggler) jtag and olimex >lpc2129 proto board >Date: Fri, 25 Nov 2005 00:31:52 -0000 > >This is the sort of feedback that is useful. I think we've been very >good in providing free licenses and (in some cases) hardware to many >users for their use--but we don't shout about it. I may actually put a >page up on the website with the more interesting projects we have >supported, but we have sent more keys to "intense hobbyists" that have >the front to contact us directly. I'm getting soft... :-) > >I *know* that I'd like to do something for hobbyists, but I'm really >unsure as to what the impression would be. The current company policy >is to offer what *I* would like to see from a company if I used its >tools. That is, we fix bugs free of charge because we made the mistake, >and we offer e-mail support that isn't limited because if users have >problems then it's a documentation issue or should be covered by a FAQ. > >In the three years that we've been selling CrossWorks for MSP430, our >original users have never needed to pay for an upgrade. However, I can >say now, that when v2 ships, there *will* be a small cost associated >with it because it's a major upgrade in function. > >Sorry, I'm rambling. > >-- >Paul Curtis, Rowley Associates Ltd http://www.rowley.co.uk >CrossWorks for MSP430, ARM, AVR and now MAXQ processors > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: compuguru64 [mailto:karim@kari...] > > Sent: 25 November 2005 00:24 > > To: lpc2000@lpc2... > > Subject: [lpc2000] Re: Problems with olimex (wiggler) jtag > > and olimex lpc2129 proto board > > > > I can only speak for myself. I'm a professional programmer of > > vertical business applications. I also consider myself a perpetual > > student. My hobby is robotics and I take it seriously. I consider > > the hobby to be preparation for an alternate career path. If > > personal robotics ever takes off enough and can support more people > > in the field, then I would be happy to make a career move. At that > > point I would be happy to pay for the professional tools needed. In > > the meantime I'm always a student, even if I'm only sporadically > > taking courses at community college to refresh atrophied skills like > > linear algebra (for vision processing). > > > > So I guess I'm saying that I don't see much of a neccessary > > difference between intense hobby and more formal student activities > > (regarding learning intent - I'm not talking about business > > models). Not everyone into hobbies is retired. I'm a member of the > > Dallas Personal Robotics Group, and only a couple of the guys in > > that group are retired. The rest are like me - eager to learn, > > possibly in preparation for a career move, or otherwise hoping to > > hit on a commercial angle. If I got lucky and built something with > > commercial potential I'd be happy to opt into a full commercial > > license for the tools I'm using. >

> > What sort of through put are you able to sustain with your > > code on this board? > > Good question, never bothered to test it. Note that uIP has some > restrictions and doesn't interoperate well with delayed-ACK > implementations as uIP can only have a single segment in flight at any > one time. If you don't understand this implication, you'll need to have > a look at a good book on Internet protocols or the RFCs. Yes, yes I'm aware of all the latter. I'm just looking for a rough unit of measure; To determine if it might be applicable in a commercial product. Perhaps it's a better fit for the hobby market? Joel

This is the sort of feedback that is useful. I think we've been very good in providing free licenses and (in some cases) hardware to many users for their use--but we don't shout about it. I may actually put a page up on the website with the more interesting projects we have supported, but we have sent more keys to "intense hobbyists" that have the front to contact us directly. I'm getting soft... :-) I *know* that I'd like to do something for hobbyists, but I'm really unsure as to what the impression would be. The current company policy is to offer what *I* would like to see from a company if I used its tools. That is, we fix bugs free of charge because we made the mistake, and we offer e-mail support that isn't limited because if users have problems then it's a documentation issue or should be covered by a FAQ. In the three years that we've been selling CrossWorks for MSP430, our original users have never needed to pay for an upgrade. However, I can say now, that when v2 ships, there *will* be a small cost associated with it because it's a major upgrade in function. Sorry, I'm rambling. -- Paul Curtis, Rowley Associates Ltd http://www.rowley.co.uk CrossWorks for MSP430, ARM, AVR and now MAXQ processors > -----Original Message----- > From: compuguru64 [mailto:karim@kari...] > Sent: 25 November 2005 00:24 > To: lpc2000@lpc2... > Subject: [lpc2000] Re: Problems with olimex (wiggler) jtag > and olimex lpc2129 proto board > > I can only speak for myself. I'm a professional programmer of > vertical business applications. I also consider myself a perpetual > student. My hobby is robotics and I take it seriously. I consider > the hobby to be preparation for an alternate career path. If > personal robotics ever takes off enough and can support more people > in the field, then I would be happy to make a career move. At that > point I would be happy to pay for the professional tools needed. In > the meantime I'm always a student, even if I'm only sporadically > taking courses at community college to refresh atrophied skills like > linear algebra (for vision processing). > > So I guess I'm saying that I don't see much of a neccessary > difference between intense hobby and more formal student activities > (regarding learning intent - I'm not talking about business > models). Not everyone into hobbies is retired. I'm a member of the > Dallas Personal Robotics Group, and only a couple of the guys in > that group are retired. The rest are like me - eager to learn, > possibly in preparation for a career move, or otherwise hoping to > hit on a commercial angle. If I got lucky and built something with > commercial potential I'd be happy to opt into a full commercial > license for the tools I'm using.

I can only speak for myself. I'm a professional programmer of vertical business applications. I also consider myself a perpetual student. My hobby is robotics and I take it seriously. I consider the hobby to be preparation for an alternate career path. If personal robotics ever takes off enough and can support more people in the field, then I would be happy to make a career move. At that point I would be happy to pay for the professional tools needed. In the meantime I'm always a student, even if I'm only sporadically taking courses at community college to refresh atrophied skills like linear algebra (for vision processing). So I guess I'm saying that I don't see much of a neccessary difference between intense hobby and more formal student activities (regarding learning intent - I'm not talking about business models). Not everyone into hobbies is retired. I'm a member of the Dallas Personal Robotics Group, and only a couple of the guys in that group are retired. The rest are like me - eager to learn, possibly in preparation for a career move, or otherwise hoping to hit on a commercial angle. If I got lucky and built something with commercial potential I'd be happy to opt into a full commercial license for the tools I'm using. --- In lpc2000@lpc2..., "rtstofer" <rstofer@p...> wrote: > > > > So, tell me how can I be persuaded on this? My leaning would be to > > introduce a hypothetical "hobbyist license" at, say, 99 and > require the > > user to sign an undertaking of no commercial use. However, I > really do > > need to be convinced that this is a good thing... > > > > Regards, > > > > -- > > Paul Curtis, Rowley Associates Ltd http://www.rowley.co.uk > > CrossWorks for MSP430, ARM, AVR and now MAXQ processors > > From a business point of view, a larger user base is a good thing; > any level of user. Hobbyists probably break down into two > categories: those who are working in industry in a different but > vaguely related field and may someday develop commercial > applications with the software and those, like me, who are retired > or working in an unrelated field and will never contribute to your > profits. > > I don't see how it would make sense to provide a hobbyist license to > those who will never develop commercial applications. But, if you > do, sign me up! > > Richard >