Ratio Computers loves your work!

[Anton Lundin]

On 28 May, 2018 - Dirk Hohndel wrote:

> Dear Riccardo,
> 
> > On May 28, 2018, at 12:22 AM, Riccardo Brama <riccardo.b at ratio-computers.com> wrote:
> > 
> >    it seems to me you felt my email as something aiming to harm either
> > your work or your freedom. I'm sorry for that and be sure I was not
> > meaning anything like that.
> 
> I wouldn't go that far. I read parts of your email as following a pattern we
> have gone down before and I wanted to make sure that this time I avoid
> misunderstandings. So my response tried to be very clear about the things
> we (or... I) don't want to do. Email is an imperfect medium for communication,
> so my response likely sounded much harsher than it was intended to be.
> I was hoping to be "clear", not "insulting".
> 
> > What's true is exactly the opposite: we
> > would love to contribute in some way in it, providing documentation,
> > specification, information and our support.
> 
> That is wonderful to hear.
> 
> >    Since my time is limited I thought that writing in this ML could
> > have helped me in finding someone who:
> > 
> >    1. Knows the project well;
> >    2. Is willing to work on it implementing some new features improving
> > the support for our dive computers;
> >    3. Is available to collaborate with us on such themes.
> 
> This has traditionally be extremely hard to do. The firmware upgrade code that
> we have has been written by pretty much one individual (and a Google Summer
> of Code student whom he mentored). And that one individual has had sadly
> extremely limited time to contribute to Subsurface in the past year+

The GSOC student I mentored had nothing to do with firmware updates.
What ended up in the code base from that project was basically serial_ftdi.c

It was actually Thiago who mentored another student who wrote the
configure code, and the file selection dialog for the OSTC3 firmware
upgrade.

I've rewritten quite a bit of that code over the years but the basic
skeleton is still there.

Later I wrote the firmware update code for OSTC3's and plumbed that up
in Subsurface. Jef had already written the firmware update code for the
old OSTC2's, which I plumbed up, and also wrote the configure code.

The OSTC4 fw update code is written by Jef to.
 
> Getting someone else to understand that part of the code and understand
> the requirements for your dive computer will take time and motivation and
> most likely still some help from some of the core developers.
> 
> We have other areas where we have exactly the same problem and no way
> to identify developers willing to work on this :-(


I don't think its an accident that all the dive computers I have has
pretty good support in subsurface. The only one which doesn't have
fw-update and configure functionality is the Suunto Eon Steel, because
its a pretty complex format, and I haven't had time to work on it. (And
suunto dm5 runs reasonably well in wine)



Back to the real subject.


My suggestion is to provide a couple of devices to Subsurface developers
willing to test them. If they like the devices, and like to dive them,
subsurface will probably get great support for those devices.

A reasonable model is to provide the devices as permanent loans. For
people to dive, test out, test code against, show to friends' and lend to
them when their computers give up during a dive trip, but not to be sold
on.

Also provide what documentation you got. I'm fine with getting access to
internal documentation which is not for the public to see, as long as
I can do what I want with the knowledge gained from it and the code
written based on that documentation.


//Anton


-- 
Anton Lundin	+46702-161604