GPL isn’t non commercial. But companies that place value on IP will shy away from using GPL. GPL is “more open source” in the sense that it forces derivative projects to also be open source. Microsoft can copy something that is MIT, improve it with proprietary (real or imagined) improvements and the result can be closed source (which M$ wants). If they did that with GPL (some forms, at least), someone can sue and force M$ to open source the result. This is why some businesses are shy about using it. But from one perspective, that only restricts the least free companies from using it.
Slic3r is GPL 3.0. Prusa is an open source supporter and they adopted slic3r as the base of prusa slicer. Because of that, they are legally bound to have every future version of prusa slicer open source.
Famously, linksys’s wrt routers used a lot of GPL code and didn’t open source the changes they made to work on that hardware. Through brute force of the courts, they released the modified source and projects like openwrt, tomato, and dd-wrt came from that source code.
I don’t think GPL is a bad choice. And the advantage of the project always being open is probably well worth the consequence of some worse companies staying away.
Sorry if that was the first exposure to the open source community. There is a real altruism and global benefit from FOSS. That interaction was definitely cringe. But don’t hate the whole community for one ugly event. There are lots of open source projects that benefit us (Marlin, Klipper, Octoprint, Linux/GNU, Prusa, Arduino, Slic3r, Inkscape, Blender, Git, Vscode, Platformio). Even if you are using Adobe Photoshop, having a competitor like gImp means they have to provide more value for the money than if they were in a monopoly.
I don’t hate a community for the reasons you’ve already stated. I also understand open source has its place in the world. As an owner of a prusa printer… that at one time used octopi to dial in the bed….
Anything that keeps prices respectable….
With that said, it was more of a joke, maybe in poor taste, because for me, when Ryan used the term “open source”, it triggered a memory when those two words (IMO) were being weaponized against V1 Engineering.
Maybe in my infancy didn’t understand all of what was going on then.
Personally, I wouldn’t think so. Most small switch-mode power supplies in the 3-6A range probably couldn’t even reliably pop a blade fuse and none of those fuses will operate fast enough to prevent damage to the devices on the board.
In the topic of the license choices we’ve been seeing a lot of exploitation of open-source projects by big companies that don’t really give back to the community nor pay the developers (my experience is mostly in the software world)
This for me just means one of the things the free software movement is about, making sure that if something is open, it wont be extended and exploited without further benefit for the project/community in question.
When in doubt I usually point to the fact that MIT, while more “open” in the exact definition of the term (usually called permissive licenses), it’s also open to exploitation and, when a community or a very small company basically gives away their time and efforts on design/develop/debug tasks so that most people can benefit It raises the question about bigger companies with worse ethos that might benefit without giving back or, even worse, damage the bottom line for the original creators by generating 0 user documentation or support but getting tons of sales because of cheaper pricing.
This is suposedly what GPL was trying to avoid with the version 3 as some companies were circumventing GPL2.
Are you still looking for a name for this controller? This might be a good exercise in using ChatGPT.
I used a simple description for the board in the question. Fine tuning the question might give you some good ideas for a name or it might actually give you a good name. You can also tell it to give you 50 names to give you more to look at.
A name it spits out might also lead your thoughts to a perfect name that it didn’t come up with.
[Edit]I thought LiteRider was a good name, but doing a google search on it shows a wheel chair scooter & it is a trademark name, so not a good name for this.
OMG, for the first time ever I have a name…I appreciate the suggestions, though. Light rider sounds like a good printer name though. Gotta keep that in the back pocket.
Thank you.
I hope not. Most pins are safe from common accidents, but like Jono points out we are not using big power. If we run into issues we will go with something small like the Rambos have.
So, somehow, I just found UnclePhil on youtube. He created his own mpcnc controller and put his logo (his face) on the back of it. It is open source, but branded.
That’s not his board, it’s the Tillboard, also called the OpenCNC Shield. He has already released the second version that I am using (OPEN-CNC-Shield 2.x released - Timos Werkstatt), @kockie-nl uses the first version. Uncle Phil just had the first one made with his logo on the PCB.
Side remark: he got me into the MPCNC, but his channel has turned to trash and clickbait regrettably, though his Volksfräse seems pretty great.
