Doing the right thing. How rare.
once they threatened to abandon it sure. eventually even corporations can be dragged into doing the right thing.
It’s not a corporation anymore if it ceases to exist. Sounds like the engineers are working pro bono on this initiative.
Most companies don’t listen, these guys did. Many times when people did the right thing, they had to go through a process first.
It would have been if they did it completely on their own, maybe even designed the system for this possible outcome from the beginning.
But it’s the end result that matters. They can release the source or they can not. They chose to release it, and that’s great!
And how great of these particular folks for doing the right thing1
OpenSourcing is a good move
What is “trying to” open source though? Make the GitHub repo public, include the database schema, and you’re done.
Startups like this aren’t known for their robust infrastructure design.
It’s most likely running on some weird unicorn setups no-one has bothered to document.
Fear of embarrassing code is often a factor too. Amazing how coding standards instantly improve across the board the moment you realize people outside of dev might be scrutinizing what you’ve been shipping to customers.
This is true even for my personal projects lol
I literally added pre commit checks to my personal repos today to lint and format
I’m not a programmer but dabble. I’m always so nervous when actual programmers look at my code.
True programmers know that novice code is a rite of passage. Every programmer worth their salt looks at their own older code and cringes at it. Most people who do this for a living are more likely to give helpful pointers rather than tear you down, if anything.
If someone is being a jerk to you about your code, stop listening to them immediately and walk away or block them.
yep, do this all the time with my own code… even for yesterdays code prior to second coffee time!
This guy codes.
These guys are out of business anyway. They don’t have to care; they can just dump whatever they have somewhere and scuttle off into the night, never to be seen again, nothing more than an echoing “woop woop woop woop” fading off into the distance.
They’ve been handed a rare and highly valuable treasure. They get all the good will from the community for doing the one thing that everyone always wants these companies to do but never happens, and this is now someone else’s problem.
If you’re going to have a problem, someone else’s problem is the best kind to have.
Definitely missing documentation to make it a proper repo
With passwords in the code and such.
Probably a lot of stolen code
Likely they have proprietary or otherwise private information they want to clean out first, or they want to make it more presentable or documented.
I agree I’m not a fan of the “trying to” phrasing either.
They might rely on parts that have non open sourced drivers or firmware. Perhaps different parts of the code were authored by different people and they need everyone approval.
Yeah it’s so simple, no way they could be the good guys, can’t have that.
Amazon Dash buttons have entered the chat.
Yeah, but everybody knew those were a stupid fucking idea from the start. I didn’t and still don’t feel much sympathy for the people who deliberately bought one of those solely for its intended purpose and then got the rug pulled out from under them.
Amazon was effectively giving them away for free for a large portion of their lifespan. You’d have deals where you’d pay for them and then get a coupon for actually using them equal to the purchase price. I feel like I even remember a few times where the coupon you got worked out to slightly more than you paid for the button. Basically, saying that someone ‘bought’ one was usually only partially true.
They did have a few legitimately good uses. Had to have something that needed restocking sporadically but you also didn’t think about often and could wait 2-3 days to receive when you realized you were out. A lot of prerequisites there, I used the ones for trash bags and detergent often.
It’s mostly just a shame the amount of ewaste produced at this point. I still have a box full somewhere in hopes of finding a use case.
I’m conflicted on the projects like that one right now. It’s super clever to monitor the network traffic for specific dash buttons trying to reach out, but it also feels super janky and I don’t feel like I can justify putting the effort to set that up when it just feels so fragile. Especially with the caveat that if the amazon block you have to setup for it fails then the device just becomes a paperweight.
Genius idea, but I’m going to hold out for the unlikely possibility of someone figuring out a firmware level hack.
…I’m going to hold out for the unlikely possibility of someone figuring out a firmware level hack.
In a device this old with (what is now) crappy battery life? They’re already garbage.
By “everybody” you mean everybody except Amazon. And I had fun hacking those. They were often on sale for like 2 bucks and they came with a battery that was good for like a thousand presses. You had to start the online setup process but not select any products, listen for the button’s msg to Amazon which contained a unique ID. You could then have your own server listen for a “pressed” signal from that button and do whatever you want. I keep meaning to find out if there’s still a way to initialize brand new ones.
That’s pretty cool! What would you use them for?
I had a couple stuck on walls where I always wished I had put light switches. They toggled lights on and off using ESP-01 microcontrollers. Another one was in my daughter’s bedroom where I had rehung the door to swing the opposite way so she could leave the door partway open without the hall light shining in her face in bed. As the batteries died I replaced them all with buttons run by newer ESP32s… if any of that makes sense.
What’s the deal with these buttons?
Is there missing punctuation in that headline or am I an idiot?
No, there is no punctuation missing, the headline writing style is just hurting comprehensibility. I’ll expand it a bit.
“A startup, which is set to brick an $800 kids’ robot, is trying to open-source it first”
Cheers, I can read and comprehend the original headline now. I’m Australian so English isn’t my first language, at least that’s my excuse.
Here you go then
“Oi, this startup’s about to turn an $800 kids’ robot into a bloody paperweight, but they’re havin’ a crack at open-sourcing it before it carks it.”
Yes, it should at least be kids’. Kids robot doesn’t make sense.
these things should be outlawed and bricked immediately for the sake of humanity
$800… for an emotional support toy?
Is this why there’s so much poverty in the world? Because once people have enough excess wealth, this is what they choose to spend it on instead of helping those who need it more?
No, it’s because of billionaires that hoard more money than 1000 people could reasonably spend in a lifetime.
Yes, most millionaires are cringe but you should go after billionaires first.
No, but you will be happy to know the product failed
What a waste of resources just to make somebody richer!
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