I want a CodeBug

Hi Sagar,

strange question It seems there are a lot in stock (394 in this moment).

Instead me too want one and I have done a mistake so I can't buy From Spain there is a limit of 50 Euro min for buying. Just yesterday I have ordered two Raspi PI and another stuff... I was SURE I was forgetting something and it was. I forgot to order a codebug ! Result I can't buy it until the next big order.

Enrico

I bought one because it's just pocket money and I wanted to see which Microchip PIC it uses and if you actually got access to a schematic if you bought one (you don't unless things have changed since the weekend). This is weird (to put it kindly) since on the Kickstarter campaign they promised it would be open hardware. If I ever get round to it (it's not a priority) I'll trace out the circuit and work out how to gaol break the PIC. It has some test points that look as if they might give access to a PIC debug port - if so you could use usual Microchip tools to write some proper code.

I can't help thinking how much better the whole thing would be if they had used an ARM Cortex based micro with a decent amount of RAM (it has 2k) - it might have cost a tiny bit more but would have been so much more useful.

MK

I'll be very interested to hear how they respond.

MK

I checked now the Kickstarter page but seems that any reference to the open source / hardware has disappeared. There is instead a short list of what is the PIC microcontroller used and the device characteristics. Seems no more.

Enrico

The reference is still there on this page - scroll down a long way to just under the Union flag.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/922345933/codebug/description

MK

Look at the very top of the page. It's there.
"The cute, programmable, light-up wearable for everyone. An instant, fun intro to coding -- it's Creative Commons too!"

It should be interpreted. And I think that they played over this...

CodeBug will be released under a Creative Commons license so everyone can remix and make their own bugs. If you've never done any circuit board design, don't worry, we'll even show you how you could do this too!

By a licensing point of view, first of all it is not explained what kind of CC is used (there are at least three). For example: SA-NC-ND is ShareAlike, NoCommercial, NoDerivative. Means that you should use it as-is, can integrate in your project but as the license is threaded, your project itself can't be commercial. Instead of SA-$ means that you can create your own product also for commercial usage, and you should cite the device. In short words the CC licenses are progressively restrictive, from the simple CC-BY where you are obliged simply to mention the original attribution up to CC BY-NC-ND where you are obliged to mention the attribution, only for non commercial use and explicitly you can't make derivate products integrating the licensed device.

In this scenario the CC license is not expressed at all without the specific version (actually the most used are 2.0 and 3.0) and without the licensing legal coverage in human readable form As a matter is like just to say "this is mine" nothing more. You can find all the license types and how the CC protection involves respect the protected opera in the following link: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/

Then there is another aspect. The CC mentioned (that IMO remain senseless as it is expressed) does not mention implicitly nothing that we should expect from them but just only what we can't expect from them. In the case of a device (hardware) or software the CC is almost ineffective, as it has been though for the protection of operas like music, text, documents etc. To have effect should be accomplished by a licensing for software and hardware, separately. If they does not explicitly declare that the software is released under a specific software license (hopefully a open source one e.g. MIT, Apache, GNU etc.) and the same for hardware with a open hardware license, the only thing they say is "you can buy your unit, place it inside your project, as you prefer and enjoy.

My conclusion is that if we want to know more on the internal architecture of the codebug the only way is to reverse-engineering it.

Enrico

Quite a few projects over the years have suffered from vanishing schematics/source code : (

A few off the top of my head are a so-called open source spectrometer, and a network analyzer.

Same with OpenPi, the "free design files" are not where they state them to be.

Slightly unrelated (since they don't state that schematics/source will be supplied) is fpga4fun.com who

sell effectively dev-boards/educational boards as closed source. It makes them useless in my

opinion.

I suspect that you are right and that the reference to CC in the Kickstarter was simply to attract support by implying community sharing without any intention of actually delivering. The PiFace crew (same as the CodeBug crew) have form with this - they don't publish schematics for the PiFace and have resisted requests to do so, although it is difficult to use these interface parts without detailed circuit information.

However the statement

"so everyone can remix and make their own bugs"

is a clear promise and may be hard to wriggle out of.

MK

I have no problems at all with reverse engineering the board, once I know the pinouts I don't need their frontend and will happily code onto the board directly.

I would rather give them the opportunity to live up to their word, from the contact I have had with them already they are a very committed small team. They may even consider it a release of a burden by making the documentation available.

Just wish they had a forum, however.

It really bugs me !

I don't mind at all if people make and sell proprietary stuff but I get mad about when they pretend that the motive is charitable or educational and apply a little "opensourcewash" to oil the wheels. The educational value of the RPi, Codebug, PiFace etc is massively reduced by the code and hardware secrecy.

MK

Legally (and sadly) I suspect they know they can get away with this, although morally it is wrong. As far as I understand, in UK law, if you state something is "free" (or perhaps a "reward" in Kickstarter-world, then there is no obligation to deliver on it unless there is a contract that says otherwise (and that would need

offer/acceptance and so on, including an exchange of (say) money). So they may be free to revoke it at any time : ( I've not looked at the contract though, which I'm guessing is between KS and the backers, not the project creator and the backers, but I have no idea to be honest : ( since KS appear to magically waive all their obligations once funds have been transferred.