Nobody seems to have considered that empeg car is not our only product. We are primarily an R&D company, and there's much more to empeg than empeg car! Even if we wanted to release the source there are concrete here&now commercial reasons why we wouldn't - and that's all I can say at the moment.

Rob

It's the only product listed at www.empeg.com. It's also the only product you have shipping, and the only product anyone here cares about.

I think it's a bit hypocritical for your company to be touting its use of Linux and support of open concepts when in actual fact it is no different than any other software company currently producing proprietary software.

If any of the founders of the Open Software movement were actually dead they'd be spinning in their graves right now. You've taken the labours of untold hundreds before you and produced a closed product with it.

Did you use Linux because you believe in open software or because it was free?

Personally, I don't care. I'm happy with the empeg and I could care less if the software is free or not, so long as it works and work well, which so far it does. But I have to call you on that point.

The following is certainly not written on behalf of empeg, here are MY views on this:

Yours is the attitude that keeps Microsoft in business. It's the attitude that discourages mainstream manufacturers from adopting Linux in their embedded systems, and that will ensure the eventual total dominance of Windows CE in this market.

empeg are developing with Linux because in most technical ways it is the most suitable OS for their application. They had to hack at it a bit and fix quite a few things in the StrongARM distribution, but that was ok, and of course they gave back the stuff that was fixed into the distribution.

The alternative of developing with CE was discounted because nobody at empeg much liked the idea. Financially, it was an option. I don't know if you realise how much investment and capital expenditure is required to bring a product like empeg car to the market, but the cost of the Windows CE licence would not have been the most dominant figure there.

So on technical merit, and perhaps for personal reasons as well, Linux was the way to go. It seems, though, that the Linux zealots feel cheated that their OS has been used in a real world commercial application - how dare somebody write software that runs under Linux and not give it away for free!

In real terms the hardware means next to nothing to empeg - it's kind of neat, and it cost a lot to develop, but it could be reproduced in the far east within a month or so. It's the software that has value - this must be the case, otherwise why would anyone care if it was open source or not? Why would global scale OEM's get excited about it? Nobody could reproduce the software in a month - probably not even in six months. In this industry a six month head start over potential competitors can be enough to transform them into potential customers.

Empeg have produced the cutest, most programmable, most hobbyist-techogeek friendly car stereo in the world (in my opinion). They have backed this up with the most open attitude towards customer relations that I've ever experienced - trust me, you would NOT be having this conversation with Sony.

I think it's fantastically ironic that had empeg used Windows CE nobody would be complaining in the slightest about open source software - and neither would they have a RISC Linux box in their dashboard to enhance their lives ;-)

I think I'd better leave this thread for good now, if empeg is to follow in the footsteps of other evil corporate entities I can't be seen to cohort with the clients!

Rob

Firstly, why do you assume that other products are even going to be retail units for consumers?

I don't seem to remember us ever promising the empeg would be open source - you seem to assume that it just *should be* as it runs under linux. Hey, IBM sell DB/2 for linux - why the heck isn't that open source? Surely that'd make commercial sense for them! (or... in reality: probably not. All the other database vendors would nab all the clever ideas - not actually code, which would then free them from any licencing - and IBM would wish they'd not done it).

As for the accusation of us taking labours of untold hundreds - this really hurts. The empeg is pretty darn open with one exception - our player software. All the drivers and bugfixing we did in the kernel has been returned to the public. We're releasing our download protocol and even a 2.3 linux usb driver to talk to the empeg. We're open and tell people how to use the hardware, what it's capable of, and how to get the best out of it. We've done a lot of work and investigation into running linux in low-memory situations - something which it's not exactly great at, but is essential for embedded apps: something which Linus himself is rather keen on. You also seem to think that the OSS people are against non-open commerical use of their software: so, why the LGPL which allows binary modules to be linked with GPL code? (eg: AWE sound drivers from creative, etc) Why not put it in the GPL that everything running under a GPL environment must be GPL?

The reason why is that they're realistic. Sometimes a company needs to develop proprietary software - they know about commercial realities. Sometimes you can't just put up a website and some side-effort (as you need to work a normal job too) and build up an OSS project. Sometimes you need to find some great programmers and pay them whilst they work, otherwise it wouldn't get done. OSS isn't a universal panacea - as many have pointed out over the years. It is great in some areas, though.

How do you see people like Cobalt? Heck, they've taken the linux kernel, *and* apache *and* sendmail *and* (name other OSS projects here) and the system is *totally* closed! We just used the kernel, improved its support for the SA1100, and added our own code.

Hugo

Rob --

Please don't go. This is the longest, most interesting and most informative thread on the whole BBS. I'm firmly on your side in this debate, by the way. Why should you give away for free what you spent thousands of man hours and untold tens of thousands of dollars creating? I hope all of you at empeg become truly wealthy from this endeavor. (Pardon me, Brit -- that's endeavour... ;-) Someday, I'd like to hear you give a first-hand account of how the empeg performs in the new Ferrari you'll buy with your empeg profits.

tanstaafl.

ps: C'mon, give us a hint: what is the highest queue number contacted so far?



"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"

[snip]
I don't mind you maintaining the player as your closed IP in the least. I only
feel that people are frustrated in having such a great toy that they can't
actual fully program/control (yet).

> I think it's fantastically ironic that had empeg used Windows CE nobody would
> be complaining in the slightest about open source software - and neither would
> they have a RISC Linux box in their dashboard to enhance their lives ;-)

I wouldn't have complained, I just wouldn't even have considered buying it...

Paul

Hi there !
I followed this thread from the beginning, and i was so stunned about the things that have been written that i was unable to contribute a word by myself ... until now :)
I am working for Multimedia companies myself: Sony, EPSON, Canon, Agfa and so on and so on, so i work for the kind of companies that NEVER would consider something like "open source" or "User programmable Modules" or whatever.
So those are the companies that you would consider "evil".
They are not.
They are in many ways ignorant, stupid and "overstructured" but the most important thing:
THEY ARE SUCCESSFUL !
I agree 100% if somebody tells me:
They could be more successful IF they would allow their customers to influence there products or to even customize little portions of code/usage !
But they act like they act, because they still rely on their OLD behaviours ...

And now compare this with empeg !
REFRESHING !
I think it is impudent to ask empeg for even more -> open source.
IF they decide so : fine, i'll be happy as can be, but even the way that it is right now is REALLY outstanding and almost seems futuristic and exotic to me ...
And i HOPE that this turns out to be successful too, because then the global players maybe realize what customer-feedback/support can mean.
Just do the test, compare empeg with ALL other companies that you bought Hardware from ( computer & multimedia ) ( i mean something you REALLY bought, not some kond of magic project that you heard of :)...
They are the best, most competent, nicest and friendliest, i bet so ...

So: Don't take their time & mind, trying to force to think like you, let them be successful the way they are now, and let them show it to the rest of the industry, THEN maybe in their next project we can talk about Open Source.

Don't get me wrong: It was okay to ask them about Open Source, and to ask them 3 more times, but this thread gets evil ...
Asking is something else then trying to force them ...
It wastes their time ...

Nils

P.S. I do not want to please empeg with this post, i simply think: They ARE doing an outstanding job, and even if their product maybe just is 6 month ahead, they are YEARS ahead with the way they are treating customers, so we should'nt push them too far, it is not fair and we should respect their decisions ( at least after nagging them 10 times :) .

This thread has been from the start, a pissing match.

It is now turning into the same acid "Advocacy" flame wars that pollute various BSD and Linux forums. It really is not the place for this type of discussion here.

Given that reasons for both sides have been stated, at length, and with increasing nastiness, then it is surely time to wind this down as it is a fruitless discussion. Can it be wrapped and can we move on?

amen to that... I think the empeg crew is doing a good job w/ their product, ESPECIALLY w/ custumer relations/etc.. (this bbs is proof of that..)

Keep up the good work Empeg, I'm sure a majority of the users will agree with me when I say that we'll respect your market decisions.
-mark

Actually, I think QNX would have been a good choice as a base OS, as it is designed to be run in an embedded environment and source is available, but that's just me.

Don't take my argument the wrong way - I am quite pleased with the product and also am quite pleased with the incredible level of support you provide. It's just that the attitude you present on your webpage and the one you present here are slightly opposing.

Frankly, I couldn't be happier, except I'd like playlists to work. :)

Pity QNX is x86 only (and most definitely not open source). Won't exactly run well on a StrongARM. There are however plenty of RTOSes which *will* run on SA's, but linux is sooooo much cuter. But you know that :)

Hugo
ps: QNX UK is about, ooooo, 50 feet from our office. We could probably shout at them from here and ask if they're doing an ARM port...

QNX UK is about, ooooo, 50 feet from our office.

According to the latest copy of QNX news, which ironically landed on my doormat
this morning, they've now moved to Waterbeach "to allow for better training facilities".

Out of interest Hugo, have you seen this? mobileGT

Dominic

Cambridge Car Audio
http://www.cambscaraudio.co.uk