Rockbox Player - Project to design and build a Free/Open hardware audio player

[casainho]

And why not V3?

Because it's debatable whether or not it would then be license compatible with everything else that Rockbox has licensed.

But, just in the case of this hardware? would be V3 ok or not?

[GodEater]

I'm not sure, in the case of hardware specs, what V3 gives you, that V2 doesn't.

What do you think V2 is missing ?

[casainho]

I'm not sure, in the case of hardware specs, what V3 gives you, that V2 doesn't.

What do you think V2 is missing ?

I don't really know what V3 give more then the V2. IMO I should trust in people that made the last version of the same license. But I would like to know opinions from people more experienced.

[zajacattack]

OK, totally forget what I said. Apparently, I can't read.

[cool_walking_]

zajacattack:

hehe. Read back a little further. They're talking about GPL2 vs. GPL3.

[spark]

i guess GPL was never written with hardware in mind. it really shouldn't matter that much to us.
The firmware (i.e. bootloader, etc) can be released using the same license as Rockbox. (i.e. GPLv2).

The schematic and layout is more of engineering, design and art. You have to copyright them. It is not necessary that we release them under GPL license.  I guess we are free to use any other type of licensing without violating Rockbox software license.

For hardware, we can choose one of the Creative Commons license based on whether we want commercial use or no and whether we want to allow modifications or no, and if modifications are share alike or no.
Selecting one of the various available licenses is easy. check out this link. just select what you want and it will choose the appropriate license.
http://creativecommons.org/license/

i guess this one is appropriate for us

• Commercial use allowed
• Modifications allowed as long as shared alike
• Authors must be attributed

http://creativecommons.org/license/results-one?q_1=2&q_1=1&field_commercial=yes&field_derivatives=sa&field_jurisdiction=us&field_format=&field_worktitle=&field_attribute_to_name=&field_attribute_to_url=&field_sourceurl=&field_morepermissionsurl=&lang=en_US&language=en_US&n_questions=3
explanation
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/us/

[casainho]

i guess this one is appropriate for us

• Commercial use allowed
• Modifications allowed as long as shared alike
• Authors must be attributed

So, whats the difference between that and GPL2? - we get the same with GPL2, no?

[GodEater]

The GPL is a license written specifically to describe software. You're not designing software here - the CC license is much more appropriate for hardware design.

[casainho]

The GPL is a license written specifically to describe software. You're not designing software here - the CC license is much more appropriate for hardware design.

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ --> when I click in US, It says "Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported"?? - what that means? I was trying to find some general to all countries and just no to US...

The 2.5 version says Generic instead of the Unported...

I will then edit wiki page to that license.

[toffe]

A good page on open hardware and licence

http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/articles/making_open_hardware_possible?page=0%2C0
http://www.tapr.org/OHL

[casainho]

A good page on open hardware and licence

http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/articles/making_open_hardware_possible?page=0%2C0
http://www.tapr.org/OHL

After reading this suggestions - thanks toffe :-) - I would use The TAPR Open Hardware License instead of any other. I will wait 2 days for suggestions or other ideas before chose and write this license on wiki page.

[spark]

I'm not sure how well TAPR-OHL is supported. I don't think it is popular still.

I will prefer Creative Commons to TAPR due to its popularity and support in various countries.

[techforumz]

[[V1 requirements]]

[1 or 2 outputs?]
1 stere o/p should suffice. you can anyways plug a Y splitter externally to have 2 headphones.

I like having two. Maybe one can double as a line-in, like on the zen v.

[wireless connectivity?]
Bluetooth is a good option. For hardware all we may need is a SPI bluettoth chip. i dunno how r we gonna implement the bluetooth software stack on the player. It will be challenging.

WiFi is way faster, and easier to program. Plus we can implement internet radio.

[Built-in storage]
The main purpose of built in storage is to hold the firmware. But it doesn't hurt if we have some more space here to accomodate some media files.

(available options NOR, NAND, SPI)

SPI is not an option as it is restricted to a few MB's with very high price/MB.

NOR is expensive whhen compared to NAND.  Again restricted to less than 64MB

NAND has lowest price/MB.
the AT91 supports NAND bootloader. NAND is cheap and available in higher capacities with lowest price/MB. in fact the 8GB SD card we r talking about also uses NAND chip/s iniside.
1GB internal NAND is the best value for money for now. by the time we're in production, 2/4GB should be appropriate. Nothing changes in the hardware. just need to solder the cheaper/bigger chip.

An external IDE port would be useful. I've got a ton of HDDs collecting dust.

[CAD tools]
gimme an option to use Orcad Layout and i'll get the PCB done in a week's time. we can later re-design using kiCad. atleast we'll get the concept proven.
jokes apart. maybe we'll have to learn kiCad(PCB).

Ok, now what about the CPU? I believe an ARM9 @ 200MHz would be more than sufficient.

What screen? Something about 2.5" true color sounds good.

[casainho]

Ok, now what about the CPU? I believe an ARM9 @ 200MHz would be more than sufficient.

What screen? Something about 2.5" true color sounds good.

Thank you for yours suggestions. I would like to point you to the page about the project and as you will read, we already selected the processor:
http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/RockboxPlayer

[scorche]

[wireless connectivity?]
Bluetooth is a good option. For hardware all we may need is a SPI bluettoth chip. i dunno how r we gonna implement the bluetooth software stack on the player. It will be challenging.

WiFi is way faster, and easier to program. Plus we can implement internet radio.

It also uses up much more power.