Exchange tips and tricks for the Akai MPC4000
By Renich Mon Jul 24, 2006 3:29 pm
Guys, I think this is a wise proposal. Akai would save themselves a lot of trouble if they made the OS open source.

It would give us the chance (to those who know programming) to improve the software and make it bug free!

How is that? Is there anybody here who could take care of such a task?

I can offer webspace (SourceForge can too) and testing time. I could also translate things from english to spanish.

Any volunteers?

By illiac Mon Jul 24, 2006 4:05 pm
If the source were available I would volunteer some labor. I'm an experienced programmer.
-illiac

By adrian Mon Jul 24, 2006 4:05 pm
There are plenty of other OS threads. Don't start more.

By Renich Mon Jul 24, 2006 4:11 pm
whoa! thanks illiac.

Sorry adrian, but this could be the start of a petition to akai so we can open source the OS, or at least develop our own, based on akai standards. This would be great.

By diegoeskryptic Mon Jul 24, 2006 6:56 pm
hmm.. i def think its something akai would consider,, but its too early in the game to tell what they would do.. i think at the death line of each machine, they should do such a thing..

such as the mpc 60, 3000, 2000, etc, etc.. all the other stuff is new.. but for the older machines, hell yeah. The user base is huuuuge.


Great idea Ren...

By Renich Mon Jul 24, 2006 7:09 pm
Thanks a lot for the comments.

Well, this will only stay as an idea if we don't start moving. I would like to ask everyone to consider and sign yourself in this thread so we can make this proposal official.

If you know anybody that would be interested, please, tell them to join the thread and then, we can make a proposal to akai.

Thank you in advance.

Remember, we don't need programmers only, we need beta testers, translators, ideas, contributors, etc.

Our only goal should be to improve the software and, therefore, our music.

By illiac Mon Jul 24, 2006 8:15 pm
Well, someone needs to get on the telephone with a decision-maker at Numark to see if there is even the remotest possibility that this could happen, before investing a lot of steam in the idea. It is relatively rare for companies to dump important code into the public domain, and they generally do it as a kind of hail-mary pass at the end of the lifetime of some product that they think will otherwise die in the marketplace. this is what Sun did with Java when Microsoft killed it with .Net. There are lots of other examples -- almost all of them follow this pattern. So someone needs to find out if Numark would entertain this idea. If they have trade secret code in there, or for some other reason want to protect the source, then it's a non-starter, and it's better to know this early on. IMO.

I could try to call them but it's not going to happen for a while because I'm swamped and am leaving to go abroad in less than a week.

-illiac

By Renich Mon Jul 24, 2006 9:11 pm
How about making a petition list? I think that it is easier to step up with a proposal than going with empty hands and say: "Umm... would you give me your code? I am willing to start looking for people to help on the dev..."

I think that if we can assemble a working team, this could really hapen. Hey, they're having trouble releasing stable OSses. I think they need the help, but we need to organize.

Please post your opinions.

By Renich Mon Jul 24, 2006 9:17 pm
Ok, here is another one...

Do we really need the source to start a Open-MPC OS at all?

I have seen the insides, and it looks like a normal motherboard with IDE ports and some cables attached.

I think that, if we can find the right people... maybe users or not, we could start an Open OS project for Akai. This would be very cool. It may even help the company in the popularity.

It may even become the first open source instrument around... that I know of...

By Alphawolf Mon Jul 24, 2006 9:25 pm
what are all you nerds talking about in your computer language?!

By Renich Mon Jul 24, 2006 9:31 pm
We are trying to turn the MPC experience into a happy one... hehe. A better world for MPC-4000 users

By illiac Mon Jul 24, 2006 10:32 pm
what are all you nerds talking about in your computer language?!


Haha, we're trying to figure out how to break your MPC Alphawolf.

I have seen the insides, and it looks like a normal motherboard with IDE ports and some cables attached.



Umm, we need like a million times more information than that. At a minimum we need to know the architecture in detail (DETAIL). That assumes that we are willing to write our own loaders and device drivers and everything. Realistically, we would want to build on top of the basic level of Akai firmware: device drivers, loaders / flash programmers, ak.sys interface, etc. This can only happen if Akai contributes both documentation and code to bootstrap the effort. Someone who rolls their own from scratch will end up with something MUCH less stable and reliable than the current OS.

The more I think about this, the less realiistic I think it is. It is not just the sequencer they would be dumping into the public domain; it is also the Z4 sampler, which is one hell of a thing to give away.

-illiac

By Renich Mon Jul 24, 2006 10:35 pm
Don't be pesimistic, my friend.

I have 2 interested guys already. One of them is in the middle of developing his own kernel.

If anyone is interested, please join the IRC channel at freenode: irc://freenode/openmpc

I am sure we are gonna get somewhere. If we don't believe, who will? Come on! We can do this! Let's try!

By illiac Tue Jul 25, 2006 1:35 am
OK, we're off to an auspicious start: the URL doesn't work. :)

(Only kidding, I have to bind irc to something.)

-illiac

By boomspot Tue Jul 25, 2006 2:56 am
cool. you guys can program while the rest of us make music. :)