N54 OpenFlash Tablet!

[adrian@vishnu]

Originally Posted by Kabnine

I saw a call to arms thread for an open source project asking for people to contribute what they could. His original thread in the original post was clearly talking about a full open source project, it could not have been clearer despite current claims to the contrary. I came to the thread late, as I have only just come onto the n54 scene, and was excited by the way the community embraced him and the ideas in the first post. It really was inspiring, to the point that I even offered whatever limited help I could several months after the project had started and the thread had laid limp. The bitterness I speak of is the disappointment in the complete redirection of the project. Then to read the claims in the new post that everyone had simply misunderstood his original intentions and that it had been a commercial enterprise from the get go, really just created more disappointment, in the attitude. As I stated above there are so many positives to this project and I doubt anyone who buys the device will be disappointment in the bang for buck that it offers, that I am sure it will all blow over shortly.

Edit: And you did ask

Fair enough. I was not involved and have not read the original thread. I am purely talking about my observations of the term "open source" and its use on the tuning community. I can certainly see your point.

I seem to come across a lot of people who I consider old school. By old school I mean they have an opinion from a time when the value of something was the sum of the cost of its parts with little value being placed on the effort to design the completed product. They often see the effort required to design a product both in hardware and software design as of little value. I am mainly thinking of electronic products. Times have really changed. Electronics have become much cheaper to manufacture and more complex to design. Memory has become cheaper. The capability of software has been increased and the proportional development effort put into a product has increased. The hardware parts are worth less than the expertise to get the parts to do something useful.... but many people still see a product as a bunch of chips worth a few cents each.

[JB4-335]

I followed the original thread back in April and this guy was definitely going for a full open source tuning project (although he says otherwise now). I can acknowledge that the guy has spent countless hours on this and he is entitled to make a profit but I don't think he went about it the right way (badly influenced by one).

Until logging becomes active on this device it's useless IMO.

Most people here in Australia will still pay the extra $$$ and buy a COBB for many reasons. One being that most here run OTS maps anyway and you can get a COBB AP for under $700 these days. Also ATR is free when you have an AP.

Alex I think you need to remove the "Open Source" from the title of this thread.

We all know what happened with this project. It's just a shame.

[adrian@vishnu]

Originally Posted by JB4135

I followed the original thread back in April and this guy was definitely going for a full open source tuning project (although he says otherwise now). I can acknowledge that the guy has spent countless hours on this and he is entitled to make a profit but I don't think he went about it the right way (badly influenced by one).

Until logging becomes active on this device it's useless IMO.

Most people here in Australia will still pay the extra $$$ and buy a COBB for many reasons. One being that most here run OTS maps anyway and you can get a COBB AP for under $700 these days. Also ATR is free when you have an AP.

Alex I think you need to remove the "Open Source" from the title of this thread.

We all know what happened with this project. It's just a shame.

Logging is imminent. It is already logging but just not storing the logged data. Storage of that data was just not completed by the product release data but it will be here soon (it is already being tested).

It is interesting you say it is useless without logging, but then go on to say most people use a Cobb with an OTS map anyway. I presume than that most people do not use the logging on the Cobb.

You may be right about people preferring Cobb. Time will tell. But if it was >30% cheaper and offered a better UI and more capability for people to explore the ROMs to find new tables and share that info, I suspect it may find a place in the market.

[JB4-335]

Originally Posted by adrian@vishnu

Logging is imminent. It is already logging but just not storing the logged data. Storage of that data was just not completed by the product release data but it will be here soon (it is already being tested).

It is interesting you say it is useless without logging, but then go on to say most people use a Cobb with an OTS map anyway. I presume than that most people do not use the logging on the Cobb.

You may be right about people preferring Cobb. Time will tell. But if it was >30% cheaper and offered a better UI and more capability for people to explore the ROMs to find new tables and share that info, I suspect it may find a place in the market.

My logging comment was more directed at users like myself that log regularly and like to tweak things. I know most here just don't do any form of datalogging.

I for one hope that this device does go through many revisions/changes to make it better in every way for the end user. I agree adrian, it'll definitely find a place in the market. Heck i'll probably hit you up for one in the future just cause it'll be another tool in the toolbox plus the wife spends far more than $400 on a pair of shoes alone.

[Kabnine]

Originally Posted by JB4135

My logging comment was more directed at users like myself that log regularly and like to tweak things. I know most here just don't do any form of datalogging.

I for one hope that this device does go through many revisions/changes to make it better in every way for the end user. I agree adrian, it'll definitely find a place in the market. Heck i'll probably hit you up for one in the future just cause it'll be another tool in the toolbox plus the wife spends far more than $400 on a pair of shoes alone.

Completely off the topic. I used the OBD2 data logging software

http://**************.com/bmwlogger

to get some base lines before I install the Procede, downpipes etc. I wouldn't use it to tune by, but it wasn't as horrible as I imagined, considering its price.

[flinchy]

Originally Posted by adrian@vishnu

Hi Guys,

I will be distributing these locally in Australia. Pricing to be finalised, but will be priced to be similar to USA but with free local delivery.

There is confusion between definitions of what open source means in this market. I am not going to say who is right, but some are disappointed in what the product is and the open source claim. It is unfortunate this has happened.

I personally recognise that some generous developers choose to develop software and donate their efforts for free, and kudos to them for doing that. However I don't think anyone has the right to expect that from anyone. If you think it should be free why don't you do it for free. If your skills are not in software and you are unable to do this, would you do your day job for free?

I think the product is VERY well priced for the features it offers, and if not for the confusion of peoples expectations, I am sure that all would agree it represents both great value and opportunity for the N54 community to Flash tune their cars, share tunes, customise tunes at a much lower price point than has previously been available.

Cheers,

Adrian

people were expecting say, a $100 cable and the ability to download and tune via software on a laptop. pretty simple. that was what was promised in the first place.

[flinchy]

Originally Posted by adrian@vishnu

"Open source" does have different meaning in different markets.

no it doesn't.

source = base files. open market stuff.

the device is closed source. the tuning software is closed source. it's all closed... just because you can 'see all the tables' doesn't mean shit.. as has been stated by the cobb guys, there are countless 10's of totally junk tables they don't bother giving, because at best they're useless, and at worst they'll just break stuff.

Originally Posted by adrian@vishnu

I am interested in the bitterness regarding this not being "open source" to some people. I am trying to understand what people expect.

Do people simply see this as something they thought they were going to get but are not now and are disappointed?

Or do people expect that other people should freely give their time and knowledge so that they can make their car faster for less money? This being the case, is it reasonable to expect this given you expect payment for the job you do?

Do people thing that software has not intrinsic value compared to hardware. An electronic device is worth the sum of its parts, and any development time in working out how to put the parts together or programming time for the data that gets programmed into memory is of no value since you can email a file for nothing and you don't have to pay money for it at a parts store? Do you also think that music and movies should be free since it costs nothing to download it and the creators of such things do not deserve payment?

I am really just curious... I want to understand what people think. I work as an engineer and design hardware and software, so I have clear reasons for my own attitudes.

see what's been done on other platforms (subaru's, you're a subaru owner yourself)... open source is open source. you buy a cable, grab the rom, tune it, and upload it

no dicking about, no expense.... knowledge required. much more knowledge. in fact, a LOT of knowledge, because there is less of said 'expensive hours' of work put into making it needlessly user friendly.

so YES

people do it all the time?

have you ever heard of a little (tiny little) site called sourceforge? MILLIONS of unpaid hours

and by and large, people would have been MORE than happy to buy a convenient cable and small bit of decryption software. MORE THAN.

[Smiley1175]

I'm not interested in the open source or not discussions, just trying to understand what this thing can do.

Question, I have is. If hypothetical person 'Joe' used this device to read their car (software) and host the file, could I then use my own device to load that software in my car?

I'm trying to keep this very simple, but if that's the case, I can see why a lot of flash tuners would get nervousness with this release. Sounds like a game changer.

Would this mean the first Cobb file uploaded could be shared with anyone having this device? Likewise with other flash tunes?
How cool would it be to use a single device to load a Cobb, Evolve, GIACC file as you like.

Have I got this all wrong?!!!

[adrian@vishnu]

Yeah yeah.... Someone said he was going to do something that amounted to giving you a bunch of his time and effort for nothing so you could tune your car. He put a whole lot of time and effort and money into it and he changes his mind and decides he'd like some reward for his effort, and now your all upset because you liked the idea of getting a whole lot of something for nothing and since he said it before you should now be entitled to it. And not only that..... His definition of a couple of words is different to yours and you know better.... so there!!

[froop]

Originally Posted by adrian@vishnu

Hi Guys,

I will be distributing these locally in Australia. Pricing to be finalised, but will be priced to be similar to USA but with free local delivery.

There is confusion between definitions of what open source means in this market. I am not going to say who is right, but some are disappointed in what the product is and the open source claim. It is unfortunate this has happened.

I personally recognise that some generous developers choose to develop software and donate their efforts for free, and kudos to them for doing that. However I don't think anyone has the right to expect that from anyone. If you think it should be free why don't you do it for free. If your skills are not in software and you are unable to do this, would you do your day job for free?

I think the product is VERY well priced for the features it offers, and if not for the confusion of peoples expectations, I am sure that all would agree it represents both great value and opportunity for the N54 community to Flash tune their cars, share tunes, customise tunes at a much lower price point than has previously been available.

Cheers,

Adrian

Hey Adrian,

Do you have any of these in stock yet?

[skidz]

I believe there is a new o p e n source flash coming soon, that you just need a bt cable and a laptop and BOOM tune tune tune

[adrian@vishnu]

Stock is on the way. We are trying to get XDFs sorted for the ROMs on Australian cars. So far we have found the ROMs to be different to the common ROMs on US cars.

[froop]

Originally Posted by adrian@vishnu

Stock is on the way. We are trying to get XDFs sorted for the ROMs on Australian cars. So far we have found the ROMs to be different to the common ROMs on US cars.

Ah that's good news, and bad news haha. Hopefully it's not too much work to get sorted. My E88 needs a tune badly. Took it for a drive the other day and it's sooooo slow!

Also wouldn't mind trying some tune stacking with the Procede on the E82. What's the rough ETA?

Originally Posted by skidz

I believe there is a new o p e n source flash coming soon, that you just need a bt cable and a laptop and BOOM tune tune tune

Yeah I've seen that and it does look interesting however I kind of like the idea of having a small touch screen tablet. I only have a big fat ass laptop at the moment and it's probably cheaper for me to get this OpenFlash tool rather than buying a new smaller laptop to use purely for tuning and logging purposes.

What would be awesome would be if someone created an iPad tuning app LOL. Not sure if that's possible though.

[skidz]

Originally Posted by froop

Yeah I've seen that and it does look interesting however I kind of like the idea of having a small touch screen tablet. I only have a big fat ass laptop at the moment and it's probably cheaper for me to get this OpenFlash tool rather than buying a new smaller laptop to use purely for tuning and logging purposes.

What would be awesome would be if someone created an iPad tuning app LOL. Not sure if that's possible though.

Get a little netbook sub $200. great for taking on holidays to!

[adrian@vishnu]

Originally Posted by froop

Ah that's good news, and bad news haha. Hopefully it's not too much work to get sorted. My E88 needs a tune badly. Took it for a drive the other day and it's sooooo slow!

Also wouldn't mind trying some tune stacking with the Procede on the E82. What's the rough ETA?

We are already working on the XDFs and think we have that sorted, but have to test. I am expecting stock this week... probably about mid week. I would then like to read a few cars ROMs and see what ROM types we have here and then see where we are with the XDFs. We don't think it will take long to the XDFs as we have done quite a few now.

[Kabnine]

Originally Posted by skidz

Get a little netbook sub $200. great for taking on holidays to!

I went to Cash Converters and scored a second hand one cheap, with warranty for use with my Procede

[froop]

Originally Posted by adrian@vishnu

We are already working on the XDFs and think we have that sorted, but have to test. I am expecting stock this week... probably about mid week. I would then like to read a few cars ROMs and see what ROM types we have here and then see where we are with the XDFs. We don't think it will take long to the XDFs as we have done quite a few now.

If you need, I can offer up either or both of mine to read. I can pop by after work in the evening. Just let me know.

[adrian@vishnu]

Hi Froop,

I have the OF tablets in stock. Could I connect to your car to see what ROM you have. If anyone else is in the hills district, and could spare some time to do same, please let me know. It would be much appreciated. I just want to see what the common ROMs are. The more cars I can upload the ROM on, the better.

Cheers,

Adrian

[froop]

Originally Posted by adrian@vishnu

Hi Froop,

I have the OF tablets in stock. Could I connect to your car to see what ROM you have. If anyone else is in the hills district, and could spare some time to do same, please let me know. It would be much appreciated. I just want to see what the common ROMs are. The more cars I can upload the ROM on, the better.

Cheers,

Adrian

Yeah sure that's no problem. I work in Fairfield and finish at 6 so I probably can't be there until a bit later. I don't think I can do this week though but I should be free next Monday I think. Where in the hills are you located?

It's a 1 hour ROM read right?

Alex

[adrian@vishnu]

Hi Guys,

Just a heads up that Australian support is well on the way:

http://www.e90post.com/forums/showthread.php?t=876504

So that is support for the 2 ROMs I have found that are unique to Australia. I have also found a ROM that is common to the US cars and is already supported, so that makes 3 ROMs found so far in Australian cars. 1 is supported, and 2 are in beta.

Cheers,

Adrian