 All right, Python on a hardware time. This week's going to be a little bit different, because first up, you can check the newsletter and see what we have. Last week, we did kind of the breaking news recap of the Bluetooth arise for the Pico W. We'll see how long it's going to take for us to do some stuff with CircuitPython with that. And you can go through and check out all the news stories, testing the performance of SPI-based LCD displays CircuitPython, all the news around the web, all of the interviews, all of the videos, all of the things that make this giant community go. But Adafruit was in the latest Hackspace magazine. And yeah, it'll get to what was in there in just a moment because there was also some things about 3D printing. And I've had this on my list to talk about a little bit of 3D printing and open source. So I'm going to do a twofer. So what we were in, if you, you can download Hackspace, you can subscribe, a couple of things. The Feather RP2040 RFM95 Lora was featured in there. Hey! Big! It got either like a nine out of 10 or 10 out of 10. Got 10 out of 10. 10 out of 10. Perfect! Yeah, and so this, of course runs CircuitPython. And then we also got a 10 out of 10 for the other stuff that worked. There's two versions of the Lora and the RFM, I think I guess the Lora. Yeah, the Lora got 10 out of 10. Or maybe it got. Yeah, nine out of 10, we got 10 out of 10. Oh no, sorry, that's the witty pie. Yeah. So I don't know. Either nine out of 10 or 10 out of 10. Maybe it's they reviewed each one of them because they look very similar. Yeah. Anyways, high praise. So thank you. And this is one of the things that of course I saw in the carnivores. But what I want to talk about this week is since on the cover was 3D printing, Prusa. Here's a video that just came out and I was tagged on this. This is from Tom's 3D. And if you look really close, this video is kind of funny. So the title of the video is Open Source Isn't Sustainable Anymore. And he's in a church with an Open Source hardware logo. Which by the way, that's based on, yeah. So I did the, there's a logo that I designed that got turned into the OSI logo, this one. And then someone made an Open Source hardware logo down the road. So when I see this, I'm like, oh yeah. But anyways, the thing that's happening right now, because this has happened multiple times, I feel like we're in like the fifth iteration of the matrix is every few years, a 3D printing company is like, I don't like this or that. So therefore it's open source. So all these open source printing folks are blaming open source on things. They're saying, oh, there's clones. We don't want to do open source anyway. It's funny, like what happened recently that makes it unsustainable? Like why was it sustainable until this year? So where this is coming from too is the Prusa folks, tons of open source hardware known for doing open source. I think Prusa has a tattoo of like the open source logo. Well, you know what I mean? Maybe it could work out. With a sick ass panther. And the article that came out was the state of open source 3D printing in 2023. And basically you could go and read the article, but you have to find it in there because this is the thing. They're not releasing the files. So they're not doing open source hardware right now and that's fine, please don't. If you don't like it, don't do it. Don't do it. And they want to have a discussion with YouTube personality journalists, other 3D printing and open source hardware companies. They want to talk to folks. I actually disagree. I don't think they do want to talk to folks because I emailed them. No, they don't, they don't. We have the most certified open source hardware. YouTube personalities though. Yeah, I think we check all the boxes. I'm not worried. But we have a very different opinion, which is it's not open source that's messing up your business. It's not. There's other things like people coming in and innovating and making lower costs, things with more features. So again, this is a repeat of things that's happened in the past. So I'm just going to send the link to this segment. Just repeat, but it rhymes. Yeah, it repeats. So my thing though is in what I sent to the Prusa folks is, hey, look, cool, don't do open source, whatever. But if you're not going to do open source on the page right now, open, oh, sorry, original Prusa MK4 3D printer, when you look at the product page, it says open source. It's open source hardware. Yeah, I mean, like, what does that mean? Okay. And so- I should explain what that means. So Slicer was based on something and they forked it. And now it's like Prusa Slicer. The RepRap was open source and other people built on it. And I just noticed this arrival. It's like, oh, we have a business now and now we don't want to do open source. I think, look, I don't know the detail. I'm not a YouTube personality, but- I think technically we are. I think that what happens, and this happens, this seems to happen a lot again. I'm not privy to the internals of their company. So I could be totally wrong. But I think everything is totally hunky dory. Love open source, love open source hardware. When things are going up, up, up, we're like borrowing from these designs, we're licensed, you know, we use license and everything's cool and it's all working out. And we're using this slicer cutter, we're like this motor driver and everything is cool and you love open source. And then you start to see drops in revenue. And then when you see a drop in revenue, and I know what this is like, you get a little freaky. Cause you're like, ah, like I'm something, I'm losing something. And I think the first thing to go is like, well, I'm, you know, you're looking at who is ripping you off or cloning or borrowing or whatever. And you suddenly all gets mixed up together and you get angry because you're like, I'm doing all this work. And all of y'all are just like, you're not contributing at all. And this happened with Chris Anderson. This happened- I might've got the wrong printer, but anyways, they're not opening source. This, if I got the printer wrong, it's the, it might be the XL. But anyways, they're not opening sourcing. They want a new type of license. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, this, I mean, I remember this came up and they're like, there's some other board and somebody was like, you didn't release this board. I don't know the details. I will say, I don't know the details. I do not keep track of 3D printing. But I think that this, it comes when there's like a little, there's a point in the business where you get really frustrated because somebody is undercutting you, they're taking your work, they're cloning it and they're not contributing. And it totally sucks. Like, I don't want to, I'm absolutely not going to say it doesn't suck and like, it'll get thicker skin. It absolutely blows. And in some way people's reaction is to close and that's fine. I actually don't, like I remember like this happened with MakerBot and like B was like, I'm going to close source. And I was like, cool. Like whatever. I'm just going to, I'm going to go through. So anyways, if I got the page wrong, the thing that I've seen happen is the word open source is still used over and over after companies say, oh, we don't want to do open source anymore because of cloners. Oh, we don't want to do this. And it's kind of the same story in there. Like there's no protection. It's like, well, there's trademarks, there's patents, there's copyright. There's no such thing as a permanent monopoly on things. You have to continue to do easier to use, lower cost, better quality, more feature things. So, Thea, who's on the Python Foundation board. And then also in the- They're also on the open source hardware board. Wrote a really good article. And I sent a note. I'm like, hey, I emailed Prusa because I assume they'd want to talk to us because they said they want to talk to people doing open source hardware. Again, I actually don't think they do. I think they're like, oh, we just, come on, everybody, let's discuss. If it's anybody who disagrees with what the article is, which is like, we want to have a new license. The thing that's hard to nail down when people say that is like, what would this license actually protect that already isn't out there? Like a patent, trademark, copyright? Here's the thing. Hardware isn't actually protectable anyways. Like, the licenses mean nothing. So, it's only your intent. And for, you know, 50 bucks, I can send any PCB to a reverse engineering boardhouse and say, I want you to like desolder all the components and give me the schematic. And a week later, they send you the schematic. Like, this is a very common thing that people do. And it doesn't matter whether I have the official schematic or not. The other thing is- You know, like, they could start filing off the channels, but that's kind of weird. The other thing, it kind of turns into a Twitter fight and there's sockpup accounts. People are dunking on each other. You know, there's people who don't think we do open source hardware. They're like, oh, like, Lady Aida uses Windows, she took an elevator that has closed source firmware. Like, this is real emails that we've received. And so now to give Arduino credit, they used to have on their getting started, what is Arduino? They used to say all boards are completely open source and powering users to build them independently and eventually adapt them to their particular needs. The software too is open source. It's growing through the contributions of users worldwide. Okay, they removed that because- No. They don't do open source hardware and open source software for everything they do. Correct. That's the right way to do it. They've also got funding. So I feel like, and that was my suggestion to Prusa, is just like, just be clear what's open source and not if you don't want to have open source. There's this weird like, let's come up with a mythical license. Cause we kind of had to live through people making up lots of different types of license. Like, oh, like, it'll be open source after we meet our Kickstarter goals. It'll be open source after we're profitable. It'll be open source after five years. Like, no, if you don't want to do open source, don't do open source. Keep it closed and open later. And- The whole will be open sourced always is a little. Yeah. And like, we're going to get, eventually someone's going to tag us on this. I'm just going to send this video. It's like, please don't call it open source. It's a little annoying and weird when you continue to call something open source after you've already decided. Yeah. But here is kind of a fun, little travel back in history here. Here is a quote from you, Lamar. A different founder, Lamar Freed, doesn't find much value in arguing about who is right in the Clone Wars. Oh really? There's debate about open source hardware. I'm going to keep shipping open source hardware while you all argue about it. So what's the title of this article? Well, let's see what year it is. Do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do. Oh, August 24th, 2012. Like over 10 years ago. 10 years ago. And the title of the article is Can Open Source Hardware Company Survive Clones? And it's about... So this is... MakerBot, 3D printers. So this is the same exact story some of the actors have changed, you know, keep doing Spider-Man movies over and over. But I wanted to just do this one little like, hey, you know, we understand this. We're not going to get into a Twitter fight. I totally do know. By the way, I don't know and I don't care and it doesn't matter and I'm not, and by the way, this is why I don't make 3D printers. Absolutely not my interest. Yeah. Go to town, everybody, but here... And I sympathize with every party, you know? Like, and I even sympathize with people like Naomi who are like, hey, I tried, but none of y'all care. Yeah. Like everyone hates Behringer, but you keep buying Behringer. I guess... Yeah. So to summarize my gripe, because I do have a gripe about this is, okay, you all don't want to do open source hardware anymore, you want to do closed source. Great. Don't blame open source though. You're blaming like these, these like clickbait titles. Open source isn't sustainable anymore. Yet is. Maybe not for you. Maybe you don't want to do it, but don't, don't throw open source under the bus. That's not the problem specifically because this keeps coming out with Prusa. That's open source is not Prusa's problem. It's not the problem. In fact, they got here with open source. What are they going to do? Like rewrite every bit of open source software because they don't believe in open source anymore. Of course not. Of course not. That's the two for this week. Well, speaking of open source...