This started as an idea a few of us knocked around ... I had some time on my hands today (be very scared!) and decided to do something about it ... "freeduino universe" ... a listing of all the vendors, small and large of alternative Arduino, that is to say "freeduino" hardware, and related products. That is the idea, and what is there is a start. I know there are sites I don't have, so let me know who/what I have missed or gotten wrong ...
And while we're on the topic of the freeduino site, I am open to any suggestions as to what to do with it. I also registered freeduino.com and net, in case anyone has a use for them. A collective site showcasing Freeduino products for sale? Very open to how to use the freeduino momentum.
Can I adapt or lift the Freeduino universe page and post it to freeduino.org? I at some point I am also going to do "the visual guide ot Arduino hardware..." a sort of picture-based guide to what's out there.
anyway, onward and upward freeduino-ers.. or is it freeduino-ites.. Freeduinians?
And while we're on the topic of the freeduino site, I am open to any suggestions as to what to do with it. I also registered freeduino.com and net, in case anyone has a use for them. A collective site showcasing Freeduino products for sale? Very open to how to use the freeduino momentum.
Can I adapt or lift the Freeduino universe page and post it to freeduino.org? I at some point I am also going to do "the visual guide ot Arduino hardware..." a sort of picture-based guide to what's out there.
anyway, onward and upward freeduino-ers.. or is it freeduino-ites.. Freeduinians?
Uhhhh Daniel, I dunno how to break the news to you, but I did link to the Index, its the first thing on the page!
I did the page using iWeb and the source code is all run together .... if you aren't a mac person and don't have iWeb, I dunno how to move it over ... I would be happy to make any changes and then send you an archived folder ...
...And while we're on the topic of the freeduino site, I am open to any suggestions as to what to do with it. I also registered freeduino.com and net, in case anyone has a use for them. A collective site showcasing Freeduino products for sale?
Yip, something a little more commercial for the dot com perhaps, here's a mock up:-
I've spent a while looking around the net at 'so called' consultants and providers of electronic hardware and software solutions, and with all due respect, many of them don't impress me. Some, for what they boast, it's unclear precisely what they do, or they market products picked out of someone else's catalog.
So I think there's talent amongst the freeDuino people that can be harvested to provide commercial products and solutions to anyone that hasn't got the time to "fiddle" around with electronic's and software themselves ... and that would be most companies that don't have an in-house IT / electronic design team.
So I'd propose the dot com be used as a commercial think-tank foundation, to act as the nucleus for devising hardware and software solutions people might like to pay to get, and to showcase and sell freeDuino and affiliated products. TrossenRobotic's is a nice model but I think we can step it up a bit, provide a more diverse range of products and solutions for a wider range of commercial applications, and look better doing it
So a commercial venture, but a little more than just off-the-shelf products.
I can already hear a chorus of negativity from certain quarters. Save it - I'd like to stop global warming too but while big business is around, it ain't gonna happen .. go with the flow I say, and make a tidy profit along the way.
Great idea, Ryan!
I think thats a similar idea like the one at tinker.it. An arduino, and more, consultant center ...
And in my opinion that's the only nice way to get profit out of an (meant to be open source project.
I only wonder how such a think could work collaboratively....
Problems get solved collaboratively on open forums like this every day, for free, so it would be a matter of doing the same, but turn a profit doing it.
Problems that need to be solved are in copious supply, people able to solve them, are not. So it's as much about people, as it is about product.
I haven't looked at tinker.it's modus-operandi - but I'm sure whatever they're doing, its being done well. And that's something in short supply on the web, people that can offer original solutions and support those solutions with a great deal of knowledge. It's also about choice, and giving people looking for solutions, more options to choose from.
There's no reason why a freeDuino based home security system (for example sake), couldn't evolve to become the best system available on the home security market. But, who's really qualified to say what's best for everyone? no one, so it's an option, and if it really is the best, it's something a market will decide for itself.
An who here is qualified to build a kick-butt home security system? I'd say most people here would possess such skills, so the choice for them is if they want to use those skills for profit.
open source project.