Lego and the IP Conundrum

Packetknife writes: "Business 2.0 has an article on Lego and the development and business issues surrounding the Mindstorms product line. The article concentrates on intellectual property issues and the role of hackers in the development of Mindstorms. The hook to the OSS movement is obvious in the article." Interesting piece about Lego trying not to bite the hand that feeds it, even though the temptation is strong.

Comments

The tale of a lonely Lego Mindstorms

[Ektanoor]

Well, since news broke some years ago, I tried to get an hand on a Lego Mindstorms. And well I'm old enough to vote a few times. However it is hard to get hands on materials and try to get a robot out of it. With Lego voila. It is cute, it's a toy but it has all the basics. One can read megatons of books but never become an expert without having some life with the Real-Thing (TM).

Back then we had 17th of August, salaries going down 6 times and a rumours about Russia gong nuts. Besides back then we had Lego already but it was impossible even to search for a Technics set.

Well two years passed. And in one shop I saw the damn bastard hanging. What to do? Get the money! Well, I was short of 20 dollars to get it, and my friends decided to protect me from this madness. So I thought I had lost my chance...

However, recently it was my birthday. And I thought I should get a real good gift for myself. Well I was sure that the robot was already gone, bought by some fattened father for his not less fattened son. And what I see? That same set hanging just behind dozens of other Legos. One could barely see it on the corner. I asked the shopper why that thing was hanging there. "Well no one buys it. It's too expensive and people fear kids break it..." Besides the price was lowered by... Just guess... 20 dollars!.. Well I just said : "Freeze up that thing there I'M GOING TO GET THE MONEY!!!!!" In less than half-hour, I had the box in my desk.

Right now the robot is here just facing my computer and waiting for another bunch of stupid commands that make him stuck the walls. I study NQC, LegOS and looking over some Forth and Ada realizations. On free time I read the processor specs and think on its potential uses. I'm thinking on how this stuff can be used to teach students some basics of robotics and AI. Besides, some people got quite interested on this stuff and think to buy a similar toy. Like me, they all vote for quite a long time... :)

This is a tale of a lost and lonely robot in the corner of the shop. If Lego will try to "recover" its market, then this and many other robots will just lay there, with no use. No one of us needs their "Bricks constructor". We all need specs, tools, firmwares and open source. Because this is the best of all robots to learn the basics of robotics. And it is a great and cute yellow pet. In fact Lego should have made its toy for "Ages 20+"

To Lego people if you see this. Keep it open source and help people to develope more soft for it. The reward will be much great than keeping it on the shelf for kids who their parents fear.

Great Example!

[SMN]

This AC makes a very good analogy that I, as someone closely tied to it, should expand upon.

TI's first graphing calculators, the TI-85 and TI-82, were "hacked" so that assembly-language programs could be written and access the calculator hardware directly. The article here seems to imply that LegOS and other independent "hacks" could somehow damage LEGO Mindstorms' reputation if they don't function properly -- with the TI calculators, it also took very little effort to install these programs (mostly games), and they crashed the calculator _very_ often.

So what did TI do? Rather than trying to patch up the holes that allowed ASM programs to be run, they added full ASM program support to their next calculators, the TI-86 and TI-83. And they even documented the systems to encourage ASM programming -- and I know many, many people who bought calculators only to play games in class. This earned them a bundle.

Now, years later, this is paying off even more. I, a 17-year-old "hacker" (at least under the definition given in the article), and several others have been hired to write programs for them, and although I can't give details I'm certain that these will also make them a good deal more money.

So what's the moral of the story? As another poster suggested, LEGO should _embrace_ these "hackers" and hire them to improve their products. It seems that whatever "danger" these independent projects have on LEGO's reputation is greatly exaggerated -- people who understand enough to send their RCX a new OS are smart enough that they won't be blaming LEGO for any flaws in it (and as far as I know, there really aren't any flaws in LegOS). Almost no harm done, but great benefits for LEGO.

Even Businessweek's article says that these have helped sell tens of thousands more units. That is not in doubt. This is a case of corporate types fearing anything they don't understand, and instantly suing it. Instead they should consider the situation here and realize how much they can benefit from it!