Jussi Laako wrote:
On Thu, 2004-11-18 at 15:16 -0500, Lee Revell wrote:
And I posted a [possibly OT] rant to that thread about how this was a
waste of time and how you could REALLY make a killing with open sound
hardware.
I've been doing hardware design and device driver development as part of my day work. Designing open source hardware is possible in theory, but I can't see who would pay the expenses of the development.
The expense could be spread around the participants, but yes, some sponsorship
would be nice too.
Software and hardware required to develop a proper hardware costs thousands of euros.
So some of the work would have to be done by people who can access such software/hardware at work.
Also each prototype manufacturing of the PCB is about 500¤,
Pessimistic. I had to specify a single 6-layer board, 5 days delivery and 100
component placements before I got an online quote approaching 500Euro. And
the price drops *fast* when you want a few more boards, a bit slower. Its down
to 162Euro per board if you want 5 boards in 10 days. Its down to 55Euro per
board if you want 10 4-layer boards in 15 days. That's manufactured and
*assembled* (but not including the component cost). These are actual quotes
from an actual company who I've actually used.
and components a few hundred (because not buying >1000 each).
OK...
So yeah, it would be possible for about 10000¤ if not counting price for the work.
Either you typed an extra zero here, or you're factoring in 9000+Euros for development software and hardware, or you're expecting 10 generations of prototype before it works, or something.
Yes, it would cost time and money, but I think you've overestimated the per-developer cash cost.
I don't have, nor willing to spend that kind of money for development of open piece of hardware.
10000Euro? No, neither am I.
1500Euro? 1000Euro? Hmmmm......
Someone else would of course collect the money from the sales of such hardware.
Maybe. Maybe not.
Software is different thing, you are mostly spending just time. I've still put a few thousand euros of pure money to my software projects. It's a different thing is someone is willing to sponsor such a project.
Another option would be to find someone who'd pay us *not* to do it :)
Simon Jenkins
