Closed (ouch) or Open Hardware new Uno's ?

The only real difference is that your sketch communicating on serial will probably have to take into account the faster (115800) baud rate that the 8U2 operates at.

Relax people it COULD be used for evil, but so COULD a FTDI chip, it has the same lockout capability if you wanted to use it.

The only problem this new feature set presents is a very slight annoyance in that there is a bootloader fork.

The Arduino team were right going this route, but it means UNO compatible 328 bootloader (optiboot) chips and Duemilanove compatible bootloader chips will not work interchangably in UNO and Duemilanove boards (with out chip re loading).

My first reaction when I heard the hardware specs were some of the same cynicism, I was jumping to "oh well they have a right to make some money and close it" but the second I heard that the loader on the 8U2 is LUFA http://www.fourwalledcubicle.com/LUFA.php

I went "WOOHOO OPEN SOURCE LIVES"

Relax and wait for more info, I guarantee you its the same Arduino you have come to rely on, with a little more mainstream (non hobby) street cred.

The Arduino just got a hair cut and hid the tats, but it's still not the man, MAN.

BOZ

Relax and wait for more info, I guarantee you its the same Arduino you have come to rely on, with a little more mainstream (non hobby) street cred.

The Arduino just got a hair cut and hid the tats, but it's still not the man, MAN.

The problem is that it's cred has been going down recently. Hopefully this will get it back up in the community.

Mowcius

Im not getting whats going on here, are people worried that they won't be able to use Arduino clones? Is Arduino worried they are loosing out to cheap import clones?
I would hate to see Arduino go the same way as apple with licenses, cryptography and such, Proton devepment suite lost favour and i guess a few customer when they introduced a USB compiler key dongle, i have bought an official duemilanove and many official shields, i have also bought a cheap Mega board from china because at the time that is what my budget allowed, but i stll support the Arduino effort and comment on this forum, if Arduino becomes a controlled environment people will move away to maybe Amicus18 (for example), Personally Pic's are my first choice for serious dev'ing but i still love the ease and simplicity of Arduino and will continue to use it

Im not getting whats going on here, are people worried that they won't be able to use Arduino clones?

No

Is Arduino worried they are loosing out to cheap import clones?

No, they are pretty much getting that sorted now they have all trademarks.

I would hate to see Arduino go the same way as apple with licenses, cryptography and such, Proton devepment suite lost favour and i guess a few customer when they introduced a USB compiler key dongle, i have bought an official duemilanove and many official shields, i have also bought a cheap Mega board from china because at the time that is what my budget allowed, but i stll support the Arduino effort and comment on this forum, if Arduino becomes a controlled environment people will move away to maybe Amicus18 (for example), Personally Pic's are my first choice for serious dev'ing but i still love the ease and simplicity of Arduino and will continue to use it

I don't think arduino is ever going to go that bad...

I think there are people (me included) that think the exclusivity that the arduino boards are going to be having (with their own VID and PIDs) is a little against the spirit of the community.

Having the new chip and VID/PIDs on the new arduino boards kinda makes them a favourable choice over alternative boards now (also not really in the ethics of the community maybe?).

This makes it sound a little like it is turning into more of a profit making venture than just a nice open source project which it has been for quite a while now.

P18F4550:

i have bought an official duemilanove and many official shields, i have also bought a cheap Mega board from china because at the time that is what my budget allowed, but i stll support the Arduino effort and comment on this forum

This is all the Arduino team is trying to support.

There are some people that have sold knockoffs with cheap parts as Offfical, which means as a user its a crap shoot on quality.

The Identifier just adds one more sticker basically to the made in italy sticker but this time its in hardware in the 8u2 chip.

Some are afraid of losing what they have, so they are (needlessly) panicking thinking this means closing the door of openness.

Some of the people think that because the chip COULD be used to lock people out that it will be and they think that because it is what THEY would do.

There are also the ones who are afraid its going to happen because they have seen other capitalist mechanisms of protectionisms ( dating back even hundreds of years ) and afraid its going to happen here.

And there are even others who's reaction are like my first gut response, well it was good while it lasted, there goes a great thing to greed.

But none of the concerns are on the mark, including my first knee jerk feeling, The UNO is even more open then previous Arduinos

The additions really are MORE OPEN, the FTDI chip that they replaced is a black box chip, no control of whats inside, the 8u2 is programmable and the LUFA (Lightweight USB Framework for AVRs) is open source and fully programmable for expanded project support.

So while I realize Internet time is very fast, and thats alot of what is happening in the chicken little syndrome, in real world time the Arduino just made its next step and is better and more open than ever before.

BOZ
www.musheen.com

so, the usb chip is now open source, what next, processors where the VHDL/verilog is open source? :smiley:

Not only is it open and programmable, but the UNO hardware has a built in pad set for a ICSP header to program it, so you don't even need to hack anything (except solder the header) to get at it.

what next, processors where the VHDL/verilog is open source?

Like this?

-j

I'm glad that you all realised it was a storm in a teacup. I just wished some people who were stirring up the community would have just checked the facts before writing.

Arduino believes in open source and wants to lower the barrier to entry to microcontroller programming. We have been working on this stuff when nobody gave a damn and we have created a whole market around it.

If you were at Maker Faire you would have seen the number of small businesses that have grown around Arduino and how 16 year old kids are setting up companies that make robots (and dozens of other stories)

I'm very proud of the work we have done and the contribution we have given to the community.

I also understand that some people will simply complain no matter what because that's just easy... It's like the fat bloke in the armchair complaining about how his football team is playing... From the armchair it all looks easy but when you're the one running around on the field is a different story. :))

now go get a beer people :slight_smile:

m

now go get a beer people

what is this beer? if I get this beer will I be locked in to only 1 brand of beer? what about 3rd party beer? what will they do? does this beer require a new bootloader? and what is your evil conspiracy behind this offering of beer?

what is this beer? if I get this beer will I be locked in to only 1 brand of beer? what about 3rd party beer? what will they do? does this beer require a new bootloader? and what is your evil conspiracy behind this offering of beer?

Do I require a special opener / sipper to drink from this bottle beer? :wink: hehe

could someone clarify if the the uno would still work without the VID's & PID's? I think this will settle all questions... as long as it works why bother what it shows up as?

clarify if the the uno would still work without the VID's & PID's?

ALL USB devices have a VID and PID, along with additional bytes of info that describe the type of device, the name of the thing, the serial number, and so on. Until now, Arduinos have identified as a Vendor-specific device from FTDI, and they've needed a driver from FTDI to turn them into what looks like a serial/com port. With the new USB chip, the Arduino will (probably) identify as an "Arduino" implementing the standard "Communications Device Class" (standard drivers already built into most OS, needing at most the windows .INF file saying that that that vendor/product combination is indeed a serial port...)

There are utilities for most operating systems that will dump this sort of information for you to look at. For example, here is what the Mac's "USB Prober" app says about a genuine Duemilanove.

Full Speed device @ 9 (0xFD314000): ........   Composite device: "FT232R USB UART"
    Port Information:   0x0018
    Device Descriptor   
        Descriptor Version Number:   0x0200
        Device Class:   0   (Composite)
        Device Subclass:   0
        Device Protocol:   0
        Device MaxPacketSize:   8
        Device VendorID/ProductID:   0x0403/0x6001   (Future Technology Devices International Limited)
        Device Version Number:   0x0600
        Number of Configurations:   1
        Manufacturer String:   1 "FTDI"
        Product String:   2 "FT232R USB UART"
        Serial Number String:   3 "A9005bXZ"

And here is what is says about an "Eggbot Motor Driver Board", which is an example of a device that also shows up as a "CDC" device (this is a beta unit; pay no attention to the non-existent serial number :-))

Full Speed device @ 8 (0xFD312000): ........  Communication device: "EiBotBoard"
    Port Information:   0x0018
    Device Descriptor   
        Descriptor Version Number:   0x0200
        Device Class:   2   (Communication)
        Device Subclass:   0
        Device Protocol:   0
        Device MaxPacketSize:   64
        Device VendorID/ProductID:   0x04D8/0xFD92   (Microchip Technology Inc.)
        Device Version Number:   0x0182
        Number of Configurations:   1
        Manufacturer String:   1 "SchmalzHaus"
        Product String:   2 "EiBotBoard"
        Serial Number String:   0 (none)

I'm glad that you all realised it was a storm in a teacup. I just wished some people who were stirring up the community would have just checked the facts before writing.

Well, ever since it realise, Arduino has been stirring up the community :wink:

In my point of view, the new Arduino Uno boards are a bit more closed then the Duemilanove was. And it's understable why it has happened, but since the whole concept of the Arduino has always been as open as possible, a discussion in the community could have been expected (probably was expected as well).

ALL USB devices have a VID and PID, along with additional bytes of info that describe the type of device,

Now this is going to be the restriction.... what is the point in having the code as open source if you cant implement it?

Now this is going to be the restriction.... what is the point in having the code as open source if you cant implement it?

It depends on your mindset.

If you use the open source design approach to build and expand on a design, changing the VID and PID shouldn't be any problem at all. If you do it for yourself, go an use any numbers you like, nobody cares. A few VID/PID combintations have been released for just such a purpose. Pouf - that problem is gone.

If you want to use the design commercially, getting an unique USB-ID is just one step of many, like getting the CEE (or FCC) approval etc etc. Here it doesn't matter either.

That leaves only the cry-babies who can only wail "gimme-gimme-gimme" to have a problem with this. But they'll complain just as much that the open source schematics don't contain a PCB-maker and the chips presoldered so that cloning the design is completely free to them.

Korman

like getting the CEE (or FCC) approval

except that isn't mandatory and CE marking can be by self declared conformity.

Now this is going to be the restriction.... what is the point in having the code as open source if you cant implement it?

Well... (since I had similar concerns) as Paul said, if you "clone" the board using the 8u2 chip then we think you're allowed to use the vID/pID combination given to you by the 8u2 chip manufacturer. NOT Arduino's own. That's fair enough if true.

Or if you choose to put in the old FTDI chips instead, there's nothing in the new bootloader that's going to mean you have to write your own one of them. And we know the IDE will still be happy.

So actually... things aren't as half a grim as they looked. People may say a few of us were whinging, but from that we got lots of good info. Information that would have come out anyway... but I like to think we expediated the process. :smiley:

People may say a few of us were whinging, but from that we got lots of good info. Information that would have come out anyway... but I like to think we expediated the process.

I have to agree.

I also think this has been the fastest thread on the forum... :wink:
There were some lengthy conversations on the IRC too :slight_smile:

Mowcius

But they'll complain just as much that the open source schematics don't contain a PCB-maker and the chips presoldered so that cloning the design is completely free to them.

Seems nice... if there are VID / PIDs available for free use then it should be ok....

if there are VID / PIDs available for free use then it should be ok...

For free use in a laboratory setup only, not for any kind of distribution.

Korman