If the OS development is slow... make it Open Source!

so one guy does it for free for the love for the mpc and akai doesnt because of the love for money

Read some parts of the biiig thread.

It is interesting. The guy already haves a Working OS. Maybe the internals aver very similar. If he wants to sell it, I doubt he will give us the code for the MPC-4000... but maybe some documentation... hehehe

I already emailed him. We are gonna make this happen, I know!

;=)

i haven't read through this thread in detail, but surely you could open up the 4k, find out what cpu it has (in detail i mean, like model number and stuff) find someone who can program for it, and robert is your mother's brother: new (hopefully bug free) OS!

Thanks for the support.

I will set up a blog to keep track of all things. If you guys are really interested in this, please subscribe.

We really need help, which has been offered, and I will continue to develop the roadmap at the blog.

I will try and start to make a proposal there too.

# Blog
http://www.woralelandia.com/openmpc/blog

Renich wrote:I think it is fair that we define this:

Our first goal is to ask akai to open up the source. They would not have to depend on an open source team to mantain it. We would only have the source open so we could help fix and propose changes/updates/upgrades in an interactive way.

Akai would still be the main developer/mantainer. We would check out the code and send fixes to Akai. They would be the final editor, like in the case of the linux distro: Fedora Core

In the case that Akai doesn't want to open up the source so we can help, we would try and upload our own kernel and our own "OS".

It seems unlikely to me they would accept this model, because they have to keep synchronizing their internal sources against the open version and vice versa. They can't fold bug fixes into their release version unless they keep the two relatively in-synch.

Seems to me a model where they simply cut a snapshot of the sources and let the open version go its own way is simpler and more attractive to both sides. They can simply quit maintaining it altogether if that is indeed what they want to do.

I am swamped this week and out of pocket altogether for the next several, so the earliest I could offer to help out would be about a month from now...

-illiac

Don't worry, Illiac. I will be here getting things ready so we can start this as soon as possible.

Illiac is correct about how this is going different ways. It is highly unlikely that a company is going to give out the source to a product of theirs that makes them money. That opens up competitors to take the code, revise it, make new hardware and blow them out of biz. Almost as likely as Windows going open source. If it somehow were able to happen, it would be the best option in terms of taking the 4k to a new level. I'm a programmer and would be on board in a second. I'd be interested in doing this with ANY recent piece of hardware actually, has ANY company ever done this?

Reverse engineering might make it possible (but not easy) to add features, but I think it would make it VERY difficult to fix some of the obscure existing bugs.

Starting from scratch means you would now have your own propietary system. It would take FOREVER to actually make it competely compatible with the existing 4k specs in every way. Are the Z program/multi file format specs even available to the public? Might as well just create your own new piece of hardware while you're at it and start a new company.

cmon now dont spoil the fun

It hink that this should not be our goal.

We have the hardware for the time. What if Akai could give us the specs and we could start our own software? Come on! We could make the interfase very similar. Maybe we could make some interesting additions and stuff.

What if we start our own software? Come on. It should be super fun. We would have the whole MPC community to give feedback and tryouts. Look at how they went nuts over the MPC1000 Third party software!

They already gave me a service manual (Akai Pro). You can check it out at the blog.

# Blog
http://www.woralelandia.com/openmpc/blog/

p.s. I don't see RedHat falling apart just because they are open source...

You must be able to load existing

-MIDI (this one is relatively easy)
-sample
-program
-multi
-song

files and get them to work exactly as they do now.

You must provide rock-solid sync via MTC and MIDI clock.

You must support workclock sync in software, to the extent that this is not handled entirely by the SP/DIF card.

You must provide all the effects that currently exist and make them sound like they do now.

And so on and so on.

If you don't go this route, then you must convince people (like me) to abandon their current MPC samples / programs / multis / etc. and start over on a new software platform. I could not consider this even I wanted to -- I have too much music that I must perform live that is tied to the machine. Hundreds of sequencs and programs and gigabytes of samples etc. Impossible.

Honestly, forget about rolling your own OS unless you just want to play. If you are interested in fixing the bugs in the current OS, getting Numark to open source it is the only way. Well, short of something like licensing the source from them for this purpose or something else complicated.

-illiac

if they make this an open sourse what good reason would anyone have to buy the newmpc flag ship modle. they know damn well that this thing has untapped hardware capability but there is no big profit gain for them to do it. but there is more profit in releasing a new model
FUKK'EM

i repet: i don't think they'll need to providing there are programmers who really know their stuff. hopefully the recent 1k third party OS will prompt more Akai programmers to leave and make their own OS, that's assuming that the guy doing the programing for the 1k os is ex-Akai.

Mr modnaR wrote:i repet: i don't think they'll need to providing there are programmers who really know their stuff. hopefully the recent 1k third party OS will prompt more Akai programmers to leave and make their own OS, that's assuming that the guy doing the programing for the 1k os is ex-Akai.

He definitely needs to have some inside information, no doubt.

What would be more in reach in my opinion is making the OS of an older, out of production model, open source, like someone before suggested already. That way Akai won't lose any money and probably give away no secrets either, but giving a lot of possibilites to the community. Hell, doesn't even have to be an MPC...

illiac has important points. if you had the specs, starting from scratch is a huge undertaking. you're not talking about coding a sequencer, it's an operating system. perhaps akai has licensed a realtime os which is running under the surface (QNX comes to mind) but it doesn't appear so.

the timing is the most difficult part, especially with the midi-I/O. and at 960 ppq - which requires very precise and perfected use of the hardware timers.

(and btw, i still have doubts that the 4K really does 960 ppq with midi anyway)

even if akai released the specs, i'd say with a quality team, you've got at least a year of work to get to 1.0.



another way to look at this...

akai sold you some hardware, lets see..
a "keyboard"
,16pads
,2x4 midi interface
,stereo audio out
,stereo audio in
,320x240 grey screen
,4 knobs
,2 sliders
,fx unit

now granted, they are well layed out in an integrated way - "greater than the sum of its parts" you would say.

but the "$$$sum" of those parts isn't much. paired with even a cheep, 3,4 years old pc hardware, you're looking at maybe $800 for a "kit" that could outperform in many ways, but perhaps without quite the "integration" of the traditional mpc "console".

so if the hardware is "no biggie" then that leaves the bulk of the value in the software, and the design.

and if that's where the value is, i don't see akai giving source or specs away... even on an out-of-production model it seems counter-productive for them.



as for "replacement" software, for what it's worth - i'll probably be releasing the sourcecode & latest exe for my pc mpc-like software during August sometime.

benjamin9999 wrote:as for "replacement" software, for what it's worth - i'll probably be releasing the sourcecode & latest exe for my pc mpc-like software during August sometime.

i'm waiting with baited breath....