A word about LEDBlinky…

[arzoo]

After much deliberation I have decided to move LEDBlinky to a Trial Software / Shareware distribution model. The core software remains fully functional but the trial version will display an audio/visual splash screen when first starting.

LEDBlinky is unusual in that the application is useless without first purchasing LED Controller Hardware. And to some extent, the hardware is less useful without the software. I’m not saying that LEDBlinky is the only software option available for use with the GroovyGameGear or Ultimarc hardware, but for better or worse, it has become very popular. So in reality, the LEDBlinky software may be helping to sell the LED hardware. And for the most part I’ve been fine with this arrangement; after all, the relationship between my software and the hardware has been an evolutionary tale.

Which brings us to 2010; recently I’ve been contacted by three different hardware vendors asking if I would add support to LEDBlinky for their future products. This is not a trivial undertaking and will require considerable development time and future support. I considered a number of options and as I said above, after much deliberation, decided that the shareware model was the best solution.

That’s my story.

Thanks,
arzoo

Oh, and for those of you who have donated to LEDBlinky in the past, I’ll send you each a registered version of the app.

[Ginsu Victim]

I'm sure it's not a decision you came to lightly, so I wish you the best of luck on this new direction. LEDBlinky is an excellent piece of software and maybe this will be an incentive to make it even better.

[Beretta]

never used LED blinky does it support using the parallel port?
all the examples of led blinky being used that i've come across is for ledwiz.

[Hoopz]

I think based on the work that you put into this, that it's the best decision for you.  I hope everyone in this community will support you for it.   

[southpaw13]

Heck, I will buy it!  Just the same as a donation....

[arzoo]

Thanks guys - I appreciate the support.

never used LED blinky does it support using the parallel port?
all the examples of led blinky being used that i've come across is for ledwiz.

Currently supports the LEDWiz, PacDrive, and UHID - all USB devices.

[Bender]

I'm sure it's not a decision you came to lightly, so I wish you the best of luck on this new direction. LEDBlinky is an excellent piece of software

+1

This one of my favorite pieces of software on my cab

Lights up the just the buttons I need for each game
Runs my light animations (to music if I want)
Maps my U360s for Mame AND all the other Emus
Speaks and flashes the controls on game start so anyone playing the cab knows what controls to use

I already donated cause it is such an invaluable part of my cab
It is so worth paying for

Plus you pay for the hardware, which is essentially useless with out the software, only seems fair to pay for the software, IMHO
and Arzoo's support is second to none

I'm actually psyched about this, this means I can be pretty confident LEDBlinky will be around for the foreseeable future

[Franco B]

+1 +1

LEDBlinky is a seriously awesome piece of software and I haven't even really scratched the surface of its potential.

I know you have, and continue to put hard work into this arzoo and I don't blame you at all for going down the route you have chosen.

Thanks for all of the hard work you have done so far and here's to the future of LEDBlinky 

[wweumina]

Good luck Sir.  As a fellow software developer in another walk of life I hope you are prepared for the increased support expectations of your users when you go 'paid'. I think LEDBlinky is an almost indespensible piece of software for some applications and your support to date has been more than adequate.  There just always seem to be people that will now expect you to got above and beyond..

[nipsmg]

Nobody could fault you for this.  There's some insane unrealistic expectation sometimes when it comes to the online community that everything should be free.  Having to *gasp* pay for something is offensive to some people for some reason.

I think you should get some small amount of financial support through sales for the countless hours you've put in for free to help advance this community.  I don't use your product but have been thinking of upgrading my cabinet, and I would be happy to pay for your software if I do so. 

Good Luck!

[Vanguard]

This seems a little lame to me considering the amount of time and effort that was put into the drivers and SDK for the LEDWiz.   LEDBlinky wouldn't exist without the FREE contributions of other members.   You're essentially make money off other peoples work.   While the driver for the LEDWiz is not terribly complex,  hundreds of hours went into the debugging and devising workarounds for Nvidia USB chipset issues that made the LEDWiz flakey at best on those chipsets.

LEDBlinky is a cool product but relies on the free work that has been done by others.   Just my two cents.

[Ginsu Victim]

[arzoo]

This seems a little lame to me considering the amount of time and effort that was put into the drivers and SDK for the LEDWiz.   LEDBlinky wouldn't exist without the FREE contributions of other members.   You're essentially make money off other peoples work.   While the driver for the LEDWiz is not terribly complex,  hundreds of hours went into the debugging and devising workarounds for Nvidia USB chipset issues that made the LEDWiz flakey at best on those chipsets.

LEDBlinky is a cool product but relies on the free work that has been done by others.   Just my two cents.

The function library for the LEDWiz was created by MikeQ for GGG. Mike is no longer active on these forums and I was unable to contact him. Regardless, I believe the LEDWiz driver code is now owned by GGG and as I said above, the software and hardware are mutually beneficial to each other. The function libraries for the PacDrive, MAME Outputs, and UltraStik were created by headkaze (www.headsoft.com.au) and are distributed with his permission. Licensing for other libraries was purchased - so basically I'm in the red at this point.

[Hoopz]

Licensing for other libraries was purchased - so basically I'm in the red at this point.

That's reason enough that this community should support you.

[HaRuMaN]

I'll buy it.   

[Vanguard]

I'm not saying you're under any legal obligation.   I'm just saying that most people in the community give their software away and when you build on that and then charge for it, it seems wrong.  

In my opinion, everyone doing software should get paid.   The hardware vendors often release products that are mostly useless without the community stepping up and doing the software work (almost always with no significant compensation for the work).

Software on its own is very difficult to sell because it is so easily pirated and because there is a mentality that if MAME is free, why should I pay for any software to support MAME?

I don't really understand why everyone gets their underwear in a knot when they see someone selling a MAME cabinet on Ebay but don't see the problem with someone selling software that builds on MAME or other peoples free work.

Again, just my 2 cents.

[CheffoJeffo]

I'm just saying that most people in the community give their software away and when you build on that and then charge for it, it seems wrong.  

I agree 100% -- arzoo must stop immediately!

And I don't care that the core functionality remains in the free version!

In my opinion, everyone doing software should get paid.

Wait ... I agree with that one too ...  





In reality, it is the underlying licenses that matter, not whether anybody "wants" or "thinks it is wrong" to pay.

Hell, how many commercial products are built on freeware ? Hint: there are some doozies.

[Bender]

I'm not saying you're under any legal obligation.   I'm just saying that most people in the community give their software away and when you build on that and then charge for it, it seems wrong.  

I respect your opinion but I disagree with this point


It certainly started out as free software, and we should all be grateful it was free for so long, in fact, I had to force him to take a donation back in the day

But things evolve and circumstances change
More vendors are asking for support. Arzoo has enormous amount of time and effort in the project. It completely makes sense to me that he get compensated to add new support, functions and features to this project
I don't see anything wrong with that

Everyone that has it, still has it for free, so it's not like he is retroactively charging people
We will have to pay in the future if we want to upgrade, but that is certainly everyone's own choice

[Vanguard]

My point is that if MAME is free, people shouldn't expect to get paid for writing software for MAME.  

I do think people should get paid for writing software.  However, if you're doing it to support a community that is strongly grounded in not charging for the work, it seems wrong to try to charge.  Especially when your work relies on people who have volunteered their work freely.

If MAME ever decides to start charging (which I think they should), then the rest of the community should feel free to as well.

[Vanguard]

More vendors are asking for support.

Then the vendors should pay.

[Bender]

My point is that if MAME is free, people shouldn't expect to get paid for writing software for MAME.  

I do think people should get paid for writing software.  However, if you're doing it to support a community that is strongly grounded in not charging for the work, it seems wrong to try to charge.  Especially when your work relies on people who have volunteered their work freely.

If MAME ever decides to start charging (which I think they should), then the rest of the community should feel free to as well.

Ok, I think I see the misunderstanding here
This software is for a cab, you don't even need Mame to use it, a lot of people use it for jukeboxes
Are people building and giving cab's away free?
Do you get joysticks, monitors and buttons for free?
That's all built around the use of Mame right?

Plus there is a free version

More vendors are asking for support.

Then the vendors should pay.

Can't argue that

[Vanguard]

Hardware is a gray area.   People are getting a tangible product with real cost when they buy it.   It's hard to argue things like this should be free.   The hardware also doesn't exist solely for MAME.   It has many uses.   The perfect model would be that the hardware vendors making the money would pay software developers to support their hardware.

Frankly, trying to charge the end user is going to be difficult.   It's so easy these days to find almost any piece of software that has any nag screen or activation key disabled. You'll get a tiny minority of people who will actually pay.

[CheffoJeffo]

I've got to +1 Bender on this.

While many/most folks may think that this place is about MAME and that is all that folks here are concerned about, that isn't necessarily so. I don't use LEDBlinky and don't expect that I ever will.

If, however, it adds value to a project that I have, then I have no problem paying for it, even if the project itself is based on free software (or even software that I have already paid for) and the illegal use of somebody else's IP.

Vanguard's logic is the same logic that has been used to justify the pirating of D2K ("based on somebody else's work, which I already pirate!"). It also flies in the face of most of the multi-game projects for "real" arcade games.

Bottom line is ... if you want people to do cool things for you, you should to be willing to pay ... even if they aren't willing to charge.

EDIT: FWIW, I think that Vanguard would agree with my closing statement because, as he says, people should get paid. We just draw the line in different places -- I draw the line at "people who do cool stuff and want to get paid" and he draws the line based on "people downstream not getting paid".

[Vanguard]

I just see it as being almost parallel with someone taking MAME, throwing some features into it, calling it PowerMAME and then asking to get paid.

But yeah, I guess I'm not really thinking about the non MAME uses.   That never really occurred to me.

I don't know the D2k story.   How is my belief that people shouldn't charge for work that builds on someones free work justifying the stealing of D2k's work?

[Vanguard]

EDIT: FWIW, I think that Vanguard would agree with my closing statement because, as he says, people should get paid. We just draw the line in different places -- I draw the line at "people who do cool stuff and want to get paid" and he draws the line based on "people downstream not getting paid".

I don't think the people downstream shouldn't get paid.   I just don't think the people downstream should be getting paid when the people upstream aren't.

[Beretta]

hmm im curious.. i dont use led blinky.. but is the new shareware license going ot be fore future upgrades..
or is the current version also going to be switched?

what i mean to say is all versions up to this point still be available for free?


as for mame charging.. no way i can't ever see that happening i think it would also go against tthe spirit behind it's founding.. it's open source so lots of people contribute to it.. i can't see mame ever going to a closed source and charging.

mame is a great piece of software, just the other day i was thinkin how amazing the accuracy is.
But then again most mature open source projects are because they have so many people contributing and improving on each others code.

[Vanguard]

The MAME devs have considered making MAME closed before.   The main reason I was given that they didn't is because they need a large community for development and testing.   They felt they would not be able to attract the interest without it being open and free. 

[saint]

While many/most folks may think that this place is about MAME and that is all that folks here are concerned about, that isn't necessarily so.

Cheffo's right

http://arcadecontrols.com/BYOAC-and-MAME.shtml

[CheffoJeffo]

Cheffo's right

If ever any quote screamed to be my custom title, that would be it !

 

[saint]

Cheffo's right

If ever any quote screamed to be my custom title, that would be it !

 

I just know this is going to cause me trouble down the line...

[Vanguard]

While many/most folks may think that this place is about MAME and that is all that folks here are concerned about, that isn't necessarily so.

Cheffo's right

http://arcadecontrols.com/BYOAC-and-MAME.shtml

I hear this website is also a photo repository for people with ball dancing ankle injuries (although claims are made about them being jujitsu injuries).  

[CheffoJeffo]

I don't know the D2k story.   How is my belief that people shouldn't charge for work that builds on someones free work justifying the stealing of D2k's work?

D2K builds on work that people already weren't paying for, so people chose to not pay for D2K and then pirated it. It remains to be seen if Jeff will bother to do anything similar for the coinop community going forward.

I think that you were making the point that that type of thing would happen, although I don't think you were condoning it.

[CheffoJeffo]

Cheffo's right

If ever any quote screamed to be my custom title, that would be it !

 

I just know this is going to cause me trouble down the line...

Screenshot taken so I can use it as my new avatar when you come to your senses!

[Beretta]

The MAME devs have considered making MAME closed before.   The main reason I was given that they didn't is because they need a large community for development and testing.   They felt they would not be able to attract the interest without it being open and free. 

they are right no one is going ot contribute to a project that making money without being paid..
further more it gets hard for someone to step in and help if they dont have a source to work off of.

if they started charging but left the source open so people (fools) could contribute then someone would just download the source and compile their own, or someone would just download the "mame" cracked edition or something.

i'd imagine if something like this ever happen someone would fork the project and the new "free" mame project would probably attract enough attention/people to supersede the now closed "official" mame.

thats whats happen in the past to project that close up shop and go commercial.

[CheffoJeffo]

FWIW and somewhat on topic, although derailed from LEDblinky, I have in the past volunteered to make a $5 donation to the MAMEDevs for every 48-in-1 or 60-in-1 board I buy. So, I am definitely not against compensating them, although I think it would be problematic.

If, however, they would like to see that money donated elsewhere (ROM dumping, artwork, BYOAC, whatever), that could be an option for folks who would like to see them compensated.

[HaRuMaN]

I have in the past volunteered to make a $5 donation to the MAMEDevs for every 48-in-1 or 60-in-1 board I buy.

Guilt money?

[Vanguard]

they are right no one is going ot contribute to a project that making money without being paid..

further more it gets hard for someone to step in and help if they dont have a source to work off of.

I think they would pay anyone working on the project.   But there in-lies the problem.   As the team grows, everyone makes less.

Also, as you point out, people won't be educated on MAME and decide they want to contribute.   Most people who download MAME and start playing with it never intend on contributing.  Once they learn the code and add some features, they're hooked and want to begin to help.

[CheffoJeffo]

EDIT: FWIW, I think that Vanguard would agree with my closing statement because, as he says, people should get paid. We just draw the line in different places -- I draw the line at "people who do cool stuff and want to get paid" and he draws the line based on "people downstream not getting paid".

I don't think the people downstream shouldn't get paid.   I just don't think the people downstream should be getting paid when the people upstream aren't.

You're right -- I crossed the streams!

[arzoo]

Wow - I go have lunch and all hell breaks lose!  

[CheffoJeffo]

I have in the past volunteered to make a $5 donation to the MAMEDevs for every 48-in-1 or 60-in-1 board I buy.

Guilt money?

C'mon, who really thinks that I am capable of feeling guilt ? 

I'm just a grumpy old man right !