Subject:
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article around legOS
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.robotics
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Date:
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Mon, 10 Sep 2001 20:51:50 GMT
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Viewed:
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813 times
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The question whether to sue or not to sue must be a joke !
People like Markus Noga and others largely contributed to the enormous
success of Lego Mindstorms among students all over the world. The
continuously growing LEGO-robotics internet-community demonstrates well this
fact. Why now stop this promotional élan?
Of course Noga could have chosen a less provocative name for his operating
system, something like NogOS or MarkOS. But, the software he and his fellows
created as an alternative to the original RCX-firmware has opened the
commercial door to another sort of user than the initial-target customer:
the robot research student for whom the graphical programming environment
and some lousy limitations of the original firmware do not fit for the
purpose of developping astute robots through the LEGO brick and technic system.
The intelligent policy of the LEGO-company to tolerate reverse engineering
(do not call it hacking here!) and wild software-development based on the
LEGO hardware made the RCX-brick a perfect educational tool for the study of
robotics. Specialist deplored (and still deplore) the extreme difficulty of
teaching and learning robotics and gratefully wellcame the modular
LEGO-system AND the open-source area around the stuff.
The rat-race the author is suggesting against Noga must be seen in the
paranoid logic of old-fashioned enterprises who only care of some actual and
ephemeral money-gain, but is NOT comprehensive in a world whose technology
is developping quicker and quicker in an unknown way through the internet.
Knowledge of the not far future will be available all over the world, and
all kinds of restrictions will not control it any longer, that is already a
fact. The best proof for this assertion is LINUX.
Perhaps there is another fear which is terrifying Paul Keegan, as the
article-title indicates. Open- source software together with the LEGO toy
could teach youngsters that this way of sharing knowledge is only a game.
Children might have understood that through the internet, knowledge is no
longer property of few jealously protecting and controling persons or
societies, but belongs to all. See the napster-history or even the PGP!
Let's not start an ideoligical discussion. Don't forget: the main
limitations of the original RCX-firmware are: a) the computing speed b) the
use of a few integer-variables c) very limited IR-communication. NogOS
(legOS) overcomes these limitations and makes the RCX interesting for more
complex robot design.
The LEGO-company could easily avoid an unnecessary conflict by creating a
powerful firmware for advanced users!
As Pirrhus said: "Another victory like this and we are lost!" Universities
and schools could reject the whole RCX-stuff without the open-source,
considering it as a toy and not a tool. Fischer-technik and other
concurrents could swallow the open-source an drain it through a comparable
product! This would not be a success for the LEGO-company, but a victory for
the defense of individual property.
Claude Baumann
Luxembourg-Europe
http://www.convict.lu/Jeunes/RoboticsIntro.htm
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