A very quick and dirty explanation. The Firmware that will be released to us by Glowforge is only the most basic control S/W. By itself it provides no capability to the end user. The real brains are on the cloud side and we will not get that S/W. Should Glowforge go away as a company the firmware will only give the maker community a starting place to develop H/W and S/W necessary for the Glowforge to have the most basic of functions. I hesitate to say that your Glowforge becomes a brick but it wonāt be easy or quick to get it up and running again. We are all counting on Glowforge future, whatever that might be, to provide the currently advertised support.
If you have coded in the pastā¦ Itās almost as if the company has promised to give us a computerās Bios but not the Operating System or Applications.
Thanks - the BIOS comment makes sense to me. In that case, our Glowforges will be bricks until someone (or some group) comes along and writes application code or, at best, little better than the Chinese lasers. Iām still hanging in there with my order but it does give one pause, especially as the beta lasers have apparently still not shipped yet.
I would still like to see an official reply from @dan. IF GF bites the dust, is there any chance at all that the application software would be released to the public domain? Iām guessing not as that code would probably be IP that would have significant value and which could be sold to pay debts. This group tries very hard to provide helpful answers, but those answers are at best educated guesses when it comes to the GF itself and Iāve noticed that after a while the guesses seem to be accepted as fact by most members.
Perhaps I misunderstood. I thought you asked if we escrowed our software so that it would be released under some circumstances. If there was some other question, please let me know what it was.
There are existing open-source packages to operate CNC laser cutter/engravers that could provide functionality on the Glowforge similar to what you would find on a traditional laser. These would be implemented as an alternate firmware. That hasnāt been done, but if something happened to us (and even if it doesnāt), it could be. They would not provide access to the camera features and the like; it might be possible, but we havenāt looked in to it - our priority is delivering what we promised you.
Modifying @rpeggās analogy - consider the Chromebook. It runs Linux, but stripped down so that it relies heavily on Googleās servers. However, people have created alternate Linux distributions that operate independently of Googleās servers, minus the cloud-enabled features. (Glowforge runs stripped down Linux internally, too).
That analogy may be imperfect, though, as I just thought of it two minutes ago.
Or look at mobile phones and the Cyanogenmod community.
Iām always amused when mobile phone producers say, āOh, that model phone has been discontinued because it canāt run the latest Android OS,ā and then Cyanogenmod does it themselves and then drops the mic.
Thanks @dan. Would one of those open-source packages be Lasersaur? That turned up in my simple Google search and would give me something to research instead of bugging you. Umm - looks like there are several packages out there. Hopefully interfacing from GF to one of those packages wonāt require an advanced degree should it ever be required.
Perhaps I misunderstood. I thought you asked if we escrowed our software so that it would be released under some circumstances. If there was some other question, please let me know what it was.
@Dan what putting your code in escrow means isnāt that it getās released under āsomeā circumstances, but in the āwe are turning your $2000-4000 product into a brick circumstanceā. Not that anyone can just request it, but that in the doomsday scenario that our devices are all dead, because you guys go out of business (either the business or of business) someone can bring up a new version resuscitating our devices. I had to do the same with our source code for our mission critical app that is running a bunch of hospitals. Nobody has access to it, except us, unless we go boom; now there is a whole other challenge of how you possibly keep that up to date (ugh)ā¦
True, but to the point I was talking to earlier in the thread, an escrow agreement would make it extremely difficult for Glowforge to entertain selling the company at any point in the future to someone wanting only to acquire the cloud technology and not 10,000+ users that are paying no fee for use of the existing cloud service. The userbase would cease to be supported by the new owner whereby triggering the release of the cloud software from escrow effectively having the new owner give the cloud software/technology they purchased away to us for free. Not a high probability event. . .
Well a class action suit by users to force it, isnāt great either for sale prospectsā¦ never underestimate the power of the streisand effect on altering salesā¦
Just sayān. . . Truth be told, I can see no other reason for not wanting an escrow agreement in place. But hey, Iām not a lawyer, just a retired CFO.
I know all of this is hypothetical talk, But how bout wait till we have our 'forges in hand?
In all seriousness. If that day ever comes where the cloud service dies due for whatever reason.
There are plenty of folks on the forums (myself included) that can assist with switching the 'Forge innerās with a standard means of controlling it. Even as far is making a drop in PCB. Most likely means that all the optical goodness will go bye bye. (Maybe?) But issue with that is that may alienate maybe 50% or more of the intended user base for the glowforge.
Ultimately to really assess a ādrop-inā replacement of the cloud component we really need to have a 'forge in hand along side with the firmware. In which at this point we have neither.
At this point we only know what @dan tell us. Or whatever photos we get that we can visually dissect.
Iāll confess that a mechanism to guarantee users have access to some form of functioning software in the event that we lose access to GF servers (for whatever reason) would make me feel a little more comfortable. Escrow sounds good to me but I wonāt pretend to understand the downside on that for GF.
Were GF to disappear with no transfer mechanism in place, Iād be happy to have basic laser cutting ability without the special GF features as opposed to have just a brick. From what the experts here say that would not be too difficult for some of you to create, so thatās a good thing.
Lasersaur is pretty much dead from all I see. Most of the people who code for those moved to LaserWeb. LaOS and LaserWeb seem pretty solid. And you get almost everything the glowforge can do (all but the camera) with a smoothieboard and LaserWeb.
@henryhbk: As I understand @danās plan - The day they ship out the first non-beta unit, they will also make the current firmware publicly available. What is available to the public will likely never be updated. It just exists as a universal safety net.
And realistically, if GF as a company dies out, people are far more likely to re-wire the power supply, cooling and steppers to a smoothie board or whatever the latest popular open source system is, rather than try to make the firmware functional. Especially since the moment someone does brick their board, they have no other option. And the people first modifying the firmware are quite likely to brick a few before getting it right.
Butā¦ by the time GF as a company dies outā¦ the open source community may have decided that the whole camera thing is awesome enough that they have developed the same capability.
Oh I fully expect the Chinese are working on it as we speak. I think the innovation will evolve to become standard, just because of the number of users it allows to participate.
I donāt see how a manufacturer or open source could ignore it.
Its based on setting registration marks to locate the design, to which you add cuts to in the software
āWhat really sets the eView apart is its three-camera design,ā Dean said. āOther single-view camera systems must be programmed manually to locate registration marks,ā he explained, ābut the eView system āseesā the registration marks, locates their precise position and feeds your exact project layout back to your computer screen before cutting.ā
