Today VSCP turns fifteen. Well the project was called EDA, for Event, Decision, Action from the beginning, but it was put up on Source Forge this very day fifteen years ago after having being around for a week or so before that and brewing in my head since the end of the 70th.
The project started as a simple replacement for a home automation system project that Ericsson and Electrolux was running. This project died after some years and VSCP really never made it into it anyway.
To be the little brother of other projects is a little bit of the signum for VSCP. They have been many the big and hyped projects over the years (“winners”) that came and went, died, and which now is burred and forgotten while VSCP still lives and is in active development. Small in numbers but alive and well. Very much alive. Dancing.
Some paper the other year dubbed VSCP the “IoT protocol that is older then IoT itself“. And yes it is true. If labels like IoT is important. For me working with VSCP, the framework, and what it can do is more important than labels put on to it. VSCP is still the only franework around that present a solution that scale from the smallest to the largest devices and actually solves “the problem”.
I can’t promise VSCP will be around for another fifteen years. But I will work for it to be. It isn’t always easy to carry out what you believe in. VSCP is struggling with the same problems most open and free projects are struggling with. If you have the 10K dollars you should of course bet on one of the “open” standard projects. If you don’t have that kind of money you should probably bet on one of them anyway. It’s a safe ride. Most people like safe rides. It’s ok to be a follower. After all most people are. But VSCP is about changing the world. And that is actually what we celebrate here today. Leading the way to the future. A solution for the brave. I will celebrate this day and the continue the work.
Ake Hedman
Maintainer of VSCP (Paradise of the Frog)