19 Nov
2004
19 Nov
'04
3:50 p.m.
Jussi Laako wrote:
On Thu, 2004-11-18 at 15:16 -0500, Lee Revell wrote:
The expense could be spread around the participants, but yes, some
sponsorship
would be nice too.
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.
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