There is no resentment. We just don't support commercial users of the boards with the BeagleBoard LOGO on it as we have stated.
http://www.elinux.org/Beagleboard:BeagleBoneBlack#Terms_of_Use Everything is there for you to build it yourself. Go for it. No strings attached. Gerald On Thu, May 1, 2014 at 2:47 PM, Dennis Cote <[email protected]> wrote: > On Thursday, May 1, 2014 12:08:02 PM UTC-6, Gerald wrote: >> >> I see. One of those commercial guys. I thought so. >> >> > You say that like it is a negative thing. I can almost hear the sigh > afterwards. > > I don't understand your resentment of commercial users. > > You have done a masterful job designing a board with lots of CPU power, > and flexible I/O. You then decided to build the board in large volume to > push the selling price as low as possible. The design is open and well > documented so it is easy to work with. It is also well supported by both > the community and TI. The same features that make it appealing to your > hobbyist audience also make it appealing to potential commercial users. > > I understand that some commercial users have put a strain on your > production capacity, but you are selling through distributors like Avnet, > Arrow, Digi-Key and Mouser that primarily deal with commercial customers. > These customers expect to be able to buy products from them in volume. If > you had only sold through the likes of Adafruit, Sprkfun, and Jameco I > suspect you would not have had this problem, but the BBB also wouldn't be > the successful product it has become. > > I suspect that you may resent commercial users for making profits off your > design without paying you directly for it. This is the same issue faced by > anyone doing open hardware or software development. IBM has made a lot of > money selling Linux systems without paying the Linux developers for their > software. On the other hand IBM has contributed a great deal of expert time > and effort to Linux development. I think a similar thing is happening with > the BBB. TI provides a lot of support to the Beaglebone community to > encourage the adoption of their Sitara processors in commercial products. > Given the good design, relatively low price, and direct support by TI, some > of those commercial users will chose to use the BBB. They do so because > they can't build their own custom board for anywhere near the cost of the > BBB, principally because of the volume production. But that production > volume is, in large part, supported by those very same commercial users. > > Perhaps the BBB is, or was, under priced as some have said. I think it > will still be a good value at $55. I don't think things would have been > much different if the original price had been higher, unless it was so much > higher that it was no longer attractive to the hobbyist users either. > Hobbyist weren't running out to buy the TI EVM boards before the BBB became > available, because they simply cost too much. > > I also think that you will get a lot of community support from commercial > users in the long run. I try to answer questions on the forums when I can. > I am still learning myself, so I try to refrain from answering unless I > know the answer. Commercial use means there will be users who have HAD to > get things to work, and they will be able to guide others through their > struggles with the same issues. > > I know this is getting somewhat off topic, but I thought it was worth > saying. Commercial users aren't inherently bad guys. > > Dennis Cote > > > -- > For more options, visit http://beagleboard.org/discuss > --- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "BeagleBoard" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > -- For more options, visit http://beagleboard.org/discuss --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "BeagleBoard" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
