<html><head></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">on Wed, 26 Sep 2012 11:57:58 -0700<br>Matt Joyce wrote...<div><blockquote type="cite">But, in the earliest days Unix cost money.<br>When the technology is still emerging it's sold as a commercial<br>product. But later one, as it became a fundamental necessity of other<br>products it was standardized and turned into first BSD then minix and<br>linux.</blockquote><div><br></div>The earliest days of UNIX were basically free - you got a 9 track tape with cover letter.</div><div>Everything else, including format of the tape was on you... and the usenix community.</div><div>INTERactive Systems started selling supported UNIX about 1978 (maybe 77 or 79?) others (SCO) followed suit.</div><div><br></div><div>Standardization of Unix has never really happened. There are lots of efforts with varying degrees of success</div><div>This continues today with all the variant versions of Linux (aka distributions), and other unix variants.</div><div><br></div><div>This lack of standard meant software could not be bought/compile on one system and run on anyone else's system</div><div>any unix/linux hacker knows you really need to recompile - and have all the right dependencies in right places</div><div><br></div><div>3d printing faces some of the same 'standard' challenges.</div><div>One of the nice things about Makerbot over last few years is there was a community of people that had essentially the same equipment, and could swap code, objects, and upgrades. Sorta akin to the UNIX world back in 70's-early 90s.</div><div>The DIY CNC world (of which diy 3d printers are a subset) has this non-standards issue in spades.</div><div>Mostly because there are so many variants to experiment with, and competing goals & limitations (eg use MDF vs Plywood vs acrylic vs Al...)</div><div><br></div><div>One of the big challenges in low end cnc bots is the desire to play with the tech vs use them to make stuff.</div><div>While many people have both goals, increasingly people want them to Make Stuff.</div><div>for that, you just want the dang machine to work... like Matt's example of the Epilog Laser.</div><div><br></div><div>As for the thingiverse/things.hackerspace... There are legal issues for any such repository.</div><div>A post this morning (oh heck its already end of day for most of the world, barely afternoon here)</div><div>on the Makerbot blog from their staff attorney trying to clarify things a bit...</div><div> <a href="http://www.makerbot.com/blog/2012/09/26/our-lawyer-explains-the-thingiverse-terms-of-service/">http://www.makerbot.com/blog/2012/09/26/our-lawyer-explains-the-thingiverse-terms-of-service/</a></div><div>probably already linked 10x here.</div><div><br></div><div>There are other open repositories for hardware, like the Open Design Engine (<a href="https://opendesignengine.net/">https://opendesignengine.net/</a>)</div><div>these could support 3d prints, but go well beyond that for hardware of many types.</div><div><br><div>
<div>Jerry Isdale</div><div><a href="mailto:isdale@gmail.com">isdale@gmail.com</a></div><div><br></div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline">
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