The Neuros and Open Source
From The Neuros Technology Wiki
Neuros Technology | Products: , OSD, Recorder | Developers
Contents |
[edit] Philosophy
There are probably as many reasons for developing on Neuros products as there are Neuros hackers, but something that unites us is a belief that we can create a place for developers where they are judged solely on the merits of their contributions:
- It is a place where anyone can contribute at whatever level they are capable.
- No resumes, no interviews, no connections, no networking.
- No good 'ol boys club, no managers.
We offer a place to show your value:
- For anyone anywhere that can contribute at a higher level than their test scores or credentials say they should.
- For anyone that can contribute at level beyond their age, physical disabilities, or social status.
- For anyone that can contribute at level beyond what corporate bureaucracy allows.
There are simply few, if any, hardware companies that cooperate with the open source community in as open and transparent a way as Neuros. If you walk through the website (and all its various offshoots) you'll find that the community is involved in our entire product development process from the earliest stages. From discussing software architecture and vendor and component selection to feature specifications, the process is open and public. The level of access an interested hacker has at Neuros is something that you'd have to be an internal senior executive to have at most of the major CE companies. Where else would a hacker be able to participate in developing the specs for a developer board for a product that hasn't even been released yet?
[edit] General Open Source Support
Neuros has been supporting and will be supporting the open source community since 2003 by doing things like releasing the source code for their original sync manager, the Neuros firmware, and the Neuros schematics. Products are developed from scratch in an open, collaborative, community based approach by taking input from the community through a variety of mechanism, from this wiki to discussion groups and uncensored forums. Right now, the official developer site for the Neuros is open.neurostechnology.com/. This site lists any news about Neuros and open source, and contains many links to other open source sites involving the Neuros like the links to the four open source sync managers that exist for the Neuros. Another project helping to make the Neuros more open source is the GCC port for the TI TMS320C54X.
Newsforge did a story recently that articulates the Neuros approach. Look Here
[edit] What does it mean that Neuros is "open source"? What is open source hardware?
There is no official definition for open source hardware because the concept is new and hardware is fundamentally different from software in that it has real variable costs to manufacture and distribute, and that it almost inherently requires the use of proprietary components to make it work. It gets even more confusing because a great many devices already use embedded Linux for example, but we don't really considered them "open," because the applications are all proprietary and there's little or no support for hacking them.
Neuros is making an ongoing effort to open its hardware, and we distinguish ourselves in the following ways:
- We use open source licenses for our application code not just our device operating system. This allows to access, modify and contribute to the way the device behaves without having to start from scratch.
- We publish APIs to access the proprietary parts of the hardware. For example, the TI processor that we have chosen does not yet have available specs, and until our NDA expires (no later than August 2008) there is considerable information, particuliarly about the DSP that we cannot release to the public. Thus we provide a level of abstraction in our APIs that allows open source programs to access as much of the low level functionality as we can.
- We publish as much information about the hardware as we can. This allows embedded hackers to understand our architecture and helps them to more efficiently develop on the platform.
- We involve the community throughout the process and invite feedback throughout, even on the hardware development. Very little in our entire development process is obscured from public view.
- Our software is developed not only with open source licenses but in open source fashion, with the participation of outside developers as well as internal ones.
- We work to insure that the developer tools that are needed are available and low cost (typically free)
- We seek to leverage the work of other open source projects. Why not build on the great work that folks like Rockbox and MythTV have done?
[edit] How does Neuros give back to the open source community?
Primarily by supporting your efforts with the above tools, but we're also more generally a part of the virtuous cycle that is advancing the cause of open source. Think about it: by supporting hackers, we'll produce better products that are more broadly accepted and sold, which will give us more influence with our partners and vendors, which will thus further raise the stature of the open source community thus gaining more support and resources. We believe we can build on the open source momentum to disrupt a Consumer electronics industry that has been built on a long standing web of proprietary, closed architectures.
[edit] The Salad Bar: a Strategic Advantage to Neuros
See The Salad Bar Article
[edit] How we got started with Open Source
See "How We Got Started with Open Source" to read how we got introduced to open source software and what it could do for us.
[edit] Linux
After considerable debate and discussion, Neuros has chosen Linux as the operating system for the next generation of products (Neuros OSD, N3 and 442). Linux is a full fledged operating system that requires more overhead and resources to run than most stripped down "real time" operating systems, we believe that the familiarly and ubiquity of Linux will be a great asset in developing for the Neuros products as well as recruiting developers. It's easier to port Linux applications and components to another Linux system, and it's less to learn for developers already familiar with it. As the cost of processing power continues to drop we believe that the additional overhead associated with Linux will be further outweighed by its advantages.
see Linux v. Real Time OS Discussion
[edit] TI and Open Source
Why would an open source company choose TI silicon, and what's our plan for dealing with all the proprietary obstacles associated with TI?
see TI & Open Source
[edit] Non Open Source Products
You will, however, notice that Neuros also releases products that are not yet open source. There are really two reasons for this. The first is that there are a great many partners that contribute to the production of our products. There are factories, middleware providers, codec providers, etc. There are large amounts of outside IP that goes into these products that are not developed by the device manufacturer. As a result, there's a considerable amount of work required to replace that proprietary code with open source code. You can think of Neuros as hackers from within the supply chain. Although we sponsor and encourage the hacking of our devices, it's important to remember that we are only one part of the supply chain that get's these devices built. Replacing proprietary software or abstracting it in ways that satisfy the many IP providers takes time.
Why do we release products before they are open source? We believe that it's better for us and our customers to get products to market quickly so that we can develop new features, modify hardware and advance the technology in response to our customer feedback. Often our wishlist for new features has just as many hardware modifications as software modifications. Thus we feel it's better to get that feedback sooner, rather than wait for a complete transition to open source before releasing. Ironically, by honoring one of the key tenets of open source (release early and often) we end up releasing products before the source code is available. In all cases, it is our intention to release as much source code as quickly as we can.
[edit] Status of Open Source by Product
This wiki is user updated and the information here cannot be considered official Neuros communication
