Category: Grodans Paradis AB

Categories
Grodans Paradis AB

The Frogs will go to sleep for some time #VSCP

In 1992 I lost everything. My company went bankrupt and me and my family lost everything, our house, our savings, yes the lot. We have had hard years since then and I have tried all ways possible to come back. It has not been an easy journey, neither for me nor for my family.

So today we got an opportunity that may be the path to get back into a normal everyday life again for me and my family.  We now have a chance to be part of a national debt reduction system here in Sweden which means we can come out new and fresh after five years.  Become ‘normal’ people again.

Sadly this means I have to put Grodans Paradis AB to sleep for those five years. One can think this is contra productive but it is a fact and something we have to do. Only God  knows if I have the strength enough in five years to bring it back to life again. We have to see about that.

So the modules will not be available for sale anymore.  At least not from Grodans Paradis AB. That sadens me more then I can say. The site (and the operation) will go down sometimes tomorrow.

It is important to note that the VSCP project will not be affected by this.

Thanks to everyone that have bought things, helped to get things bug free, and believed in the mission of the frog. 

Categories
Grodans Paradis AB

“If few people give and a majority take”

20160415_142722

Last year I  did a  mere EUR 1800 on my open source/ open hardware work. Well I have expenses to of course, just as everyone else does, and the bottom line of the balance sheet summed up to EUR 6500.  MINUS and bloody RED that is, and that’s negative figures for another year, now another year of many, many years.

Is it OK? No because I work harder than most people, often seven days a week, 16h days, I support a lot of people every day solving there problems, I seldom get a “thank you” for my work.  And as it turns out I am paying for the pleasure of doing that.  One must be quite stupid to do that. More than quite actually. Even I realise that.

So what is the options. Quit? Abandon the ship?

No the journey continues.  VSCP lives. But maybe everything will not continue to be free forever if few people give and the majority take.

Categories
CAN4VSCP FrogShop Grodans Paradis AB

Never ending story

power injector

Done a bunch of CAN4VSCP Power Injector boards today.

IMG_1809

Now time to solder the last parts and test Paris, Kelvin NTC10K, Kelvin 1-Wire and Beijing.

The Kelvin 1-Wire board is a new board with the same functionality as the Kelvin NTC10K but using DS18B20 1-wire temperature sensors instead. More info shortly.

Categories
General Grodans Paradis AB VSCP

quiet != no business

open-source-logo

Not much info other than links recently on this channel but that does not mean that noting is happening.  As usual there is +16h/day passes here at the Paradise of the Frog AB and we are working hard to get the Sodium release of VSCP out.  YES it has been delayed and this is due to some findings in the serial driver which lead to some other changes in there to.  Took some time but are fixed now.  It is an amazing and useful driver  now I must tell you.

At the moment we are adding some last BIG things and then a release candidate will be available for download.

One of the big questions at the moment is to decide if Lua or Javascripts should be used for the internal script engine in the VSCP daemon. If you have thoughts on this feel free to comment. This same scripting support will eventually also come to  VSCP Works. But this is a life decision. Not easy to change after a decision is taken.

Why a scripting engine in VSCP daemon? Well with it you can execute a scripts when an event is received. Thus doing a lot of dynamic things or just if/then handling or simple things like OpenHAB for example do.  If we ever get some active UX development this can be extended to a drag and drop interface to make things happen. A bit like node red if you like.

On the hardware side three boards still is in the pipe. Accra, Vilnius needs some final code and are next in line. Frankfurt Eth prototypes are on the way to us at this very moment and will be done after that.  Kelvin 1-wire Frankfurt BT will come next. And I can tell you we have a lot more brewing.

So now you know that we are still working here in the north of Sweden. We will be back with more info soon.

 

Categories
General Grodans Paradis AB Paradise of the Frog VSCP

Open Hardware #VSCP #m2m #IoT

IMG_1126

Well in my last post I told about  our hardware designs/firmware/docs going fully open. Some guy out there asked me the other day in a mail if something happened, and I really felt he hoped something bad was going on, but nothing happened. And I told him. He probably got disappointed.  Well except for a very cold summer and some happiness over some very nice days in the sun this week, everything is moving on as usual here at the Paradise of the Frog.  Hard work. Many hours a day.

The fact on this matter is that I’m not after big profits. I have never been. I am a good guy and want to feel like I am to.  My goal is to have enough money to pay my bills and have as fun as possible doing so.  Some think that attitude is bad. But I have lived long enough now to know it isn’t. All them shiny cars and waterfront houses and money in the bank is probably fun to. But it is not just my bag of fun. Yes to maximize money you should probably protect as much as possible. Well I’m the good guy…  You even get a meal and a beer without charge if you come around to my house. And some open hardware and some software.

I truly believe that the world becomes a better place if we share things with each other.  It is in any case impossible to build anything at all without building it on others achievements. It does not matter how clever the things we come up with is. It is always built upon other peoples work. I think we all should recognize that. By sharing that is.

So just like VSCP is open source licensed the modules we make and sell at Grodans Paradis AB/Paradise of the Frog  is now under an open source license. This includes drawings, documentation and firmware including sample code etc.

The license we selected in the end is the The Artistic License 3.0. You can read all about it here.  In short it means

You are free:

  • to Share—to copy, distribute and transmit the work, and
  • to Remix—to adapt the work

Under the following conditions:

  • Attribution—You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work.)

With the understanding that:

  • Waiver—Any of the above conditions can be waived if you get permission from the copyright holder.
  • Other Rights—In no way are any of the following rights affected by the license:
    • your fair dealing or fair use rights;
    • the author’s moral rights; and
    • rights other persons may have either in the work itself or in how the work is used, such as publicity or privacy rights.

So if you use the stuff we make in your own products you have to give credit to us. If you don’t want to do that. You should contact us to arrange another license.

A lot of hardware i brewing here.  I have put some of it up on GitHub already and a lot more will follow.  If you want to support this buy something from the Frogshop or contribute code. It is as simple as that really.

Cheers
Åke HedmanGrodans Paradis AB / Paradise of the Frog