As for firmware updates - We have some big BIG updates coming that have taken a lot of time so please be patient we’ve got good things coming this year!
Nice one for the retrospective, one year later and with Play in mind…
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With the synth and step machines released I think that we should ask again for polyend to release the necessary specifications for an open source version of the play - play + platform.
What do you think?
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Polyend , keep it closed !
Democratization kills creation.
I’ve never upgraded my deluge to “community” version nothing I needed is there.
IF Rohan is gone the creator mojo of the deluge magic is gone too.
I’ve hardly seen that voting on features/community development helped with one’s dream feature lists. Most of the features come from well know YT-bers that get early releases.
I love Polyend creation mojo. Open sourcing firmware would cost them almost 2+ developers. With their pipeline to pump 2 products per year it’s almost impossible to cover the cost.
Why two developers ? You need to “polish” the code close/open black boxes (algos/libraries and proprietary Polyend stuff) . To get some Polyend-API going you’d need at least 6 months of 2 devs. 6 months of 2 FTE is time needed to do an alpha(!) of a R&D of another potential product. That is where Polyend energy goes.
Without Polyend APIs there are going to be a few community C++ devs that will jump on board with minor features development dealing with a typical bureaucracy of “users vs devs” forum rules. Even without API Polyend needs to dedicate considerable resources to “open the lid”.
I do appreciate and use daily ESP32/Arduino/Linux communities but those were not started with company size of Polyend, and behind any successful open source there is $$ of backing.
So Polyend keep creating these magic devices that contain more bugs than other Polyend’s competitors. I will still buy them and keep cursing the UX after 100+ hours of usage. Without a hope that they would be ever fixed. The Polyend product pipeline is too busy creating, but not too easy maintaining existing products. This is a typical “survivor pipeline” in the current groove box/pedal/gizmo production business. A typical pipeline of a company with a lot of creativity but not much focus/resources for the existing product base. (See the play/play+ fiasco)
For the devs that are eager to step up, please list a successful open source project in the Polyend territory, meaning music gadgets with CPUs knobs and buttons. If there is no push from a bigger $$ company there is hardly one that you can find. Most of what you’d find is a recycled code of Mutable Instruments and other angels that open-sourced the algos. But has any of those “opened” gone one or two level better ?
I leave you with a few questions that will span tons of responses:
How would any Linux distro GUI look these days if there was no Steve Jobs the creator ?
Is it carbon-healthy to have too many Linux Distros maintained with too many dev souls ?
Would there be iPhone and other ground breaking products if there was voting on features in the Apple R&D department ? Apple haters replace the Apple with your favorite platform Microsoft, Google etc.
Sorry If I will not respond to quotes.
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Yeah it is sad to see this idea of pushing more products, than the ability to maintain them…
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First of all I love a good satire, thank you…
Next, what kind of an API, or sdk are you talking about?
I just asked for the permission, the schematics and/ or the bootloader of play. Not something official, not something maintained.
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I can’t quite tell if this is satire; it seems like a mix. But I for one give praise every day to my Deluge that just gets better and better.
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It is always amusing to hear comments that use satire; in conjuction with sarcasm it shows intellectual broad capabilities.
It is hard to say if something is successful or not talking post-facto to be honest; I can say that examples are out there for positive and negative outcome, so it really goes in the realm of what your bias are focused on. Personally having an API that let me do work on a file format or a device is a welcome thing; then if someone is using it or not I don’t care, as I simply look at my personal user case…But as business owner I do see the issue of maintaining APIs, and even large corporations have issues in maintaining codebases.
Fun fact: I use old hardware (like computers and devices from the 70s onward); and in the end what happens is that something is abandoned, so people rip the firmware apart and make mods and new roms. If there is enough interest eventually any device is resurrected, and this is usually something that happens independently from the open or closed source of a device.
So in the end doing something like open source is just helping people that are not that techy or with a lot of time at hand; to extend their control over a device or process/software; as expert tech people end up getting into anything if they want to customize.
It is nice to read other people’s opinions; and while I cannot vibe much with anyone that distance themselves from a topic, assuming that the people in charge are doing the best possible choices, I can see how some people can’t be bothered and pick their own fields and areas in which they want to be involved. I write code, so to me is natural to ask for something I can tweak.
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