[LAU] Some disturbing news

Will Godfrey willgodfrey at musically.me.uk
Tue Jun 5 11:36:30 CEST 2018


Wow!
I never expected this thread to develop like this :o

Still...

I have no issue with commercial software. If a company provides a service and
want's to be paid for it that quite reasonable. However, when that company then
take measures who's only purpose is to make it as difficult as possible to use
any other service, that is totally unacceptable.

This applies to all fields not just software. The poster-child being the John
Derre tractor company, and I can give you an example of the extremes they go to.

The small engineering company I do part time work for was approached by a local
farmer with a combine harverst control panel. The unit worked without problems,
but they were unable to tell what state it was in as some of the filament lamps
had failed. When they approached Dere they were told these were not replaceable
and the whole unit would have to be sent to America for a service replacement
costing thousands, and taking several weeks.

On investigation we found the lamps were set unusually deep in the housing so
no normal tools would reach them. However, we were able to extract them using a
powerful vacuum pump and stiff rubber hose. The bulbs initially looked like
standard 24V all-glass bi-pin ones. However, close examination revealed the pins
were very slightly thinner than normal, and spaced closer together. Not only
would a standard one not fit, but it would probably break if you tried to insert
it.

In the event, we gained the farmer's undying gratitude, by making up LED +
resistor modules that were an exact fit - and were long enough to be easily
removed.

That's it for me. I'll be packing things away soon, as I'm travelling tomorrow
for LAC :)

P.S.
Preparing for this revealed some bugs in Yoshimi, so V1.5.8.2 is out there now.

-- 
Will J Godfrey
http://www.musically.me.uk
Say you have a poem and I have a tune.
Exchange them and we can both have a poem, a tune, and a song.


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