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Lego Welcomes Hack Of Their Design Program
fdiskne1 writes "We've all heard about big companies suing their customers for hacking a product they purchased. It's about time we hear about a company that welcomes it. One of the most geek-friendly toys has just gotten geek-friendlier. CNet News.com has a story about how the Lego company is cheering the fact that people are hacking their public design program to better fit their customers' needs. Lego has a free program (available for Windows and Mac) that allows a person to put in their own 3D design and the program will tell the customer which Lego 'palettes' they need to order to complete the design. The problem with it was that the palettes each contained a number of bags of different shape and color Lego blocks. If someone needed only one block out of a particular palette, they would end up with many bags of bricks they didn't need. The hack involved someone taking an inventory of how many bricks are included in each bag. The program would then tell the customer how many BAGS of each to order, greatly reducing the number of bricks the customer would have ended up not using in the project. I can think of many companies that wouldn't think of doing such a thing. In fact, I can think of many companies that would intentionally use the flaw in their program to make the customer buy even more."
Don't you think the very reason Lego is popular is because it allows people DYI in many ways? You can make robots, cranes, smart buildings and other things out of Lego and thats the reason the company is alive. Why would they want to force their customers into doing otherwise?
heh
eh0d is EVERYBODYS daddy now. TekMonkey (649444): Can a moderator or admin ban this guy? Just look at his record.
You need .27 bags of part XYZ to complete your design.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Take a look at this lineup. Think these folks went to prom?
http://www.lego.com/eng/factory/design/bios.asp
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Dont be fooled by their PR campaign to mindcontrol you. There isn't a company out there more bent on copyright control, if you dont know what I mean just go to legos.com and look at this dispicable copyright notice. Before you know it they will be sending out DMCA C&D letters for building with their bricks!! welcome to LEGOdot...
"how can they call it a MINE if everything here is THEIRS?!?!" -Straight Jacket
There is a big difference between "not throwing a fit", and encouraging the hacking of an application despite the possibility of less revenue.
loganavatar.com
When a hack or 'exploit' emerges that subverts a company's sales (or other business unit) plans it can either:
1. Try to crack down (no pun intended, nor achieved), so that some people will use the hack and others will boycott the company/product.
or
2. 'Applaud' the hack, so that some people will use the crack and NO ONE will boycott the company.
If you think Lego is actually happy about this, well, have fun at school tomorrow.
Is it only a big deal because the LEGO is not throwing a fit? In short, yes. In an age where companies throw a tantrum when you modify the memory contents of your own computer in order to achieve the desired results in a single-player game, or not allow you to play a game because you have CloneCD installed, it's refreshing to see a company not only understand and accept a software hack but actually embrace it.
Well by making a program hacker friendly. They just allow more people to consider using Legos. For all the people who buy legos in bulk and they end up loosing the money on a couple bags out of 100 it is worth it. First they will have more blocks to sell to their core market of smaller bags in the normal lego sets, at a higher price/brick. Also it allows hobiest to save money thus being able to put the money to future projects. So you Gray DeathStar is completed. and you saved a couple bags of legos. The money you saved my allow you to start your next project of a life size Chubaca a couple weeks earlier. Over time it would lead you to have 2 or 3 more projects durring your life time and maximizing sales for Lego.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
All they seem to carry around here are the sets that only make one thing and have lots of specialized, only-one-way-to-use-it parts. No more big box of Dacta gears, shafts, beams, etc. Great for 7 year olds who want to make a pirate ship; not so good for adults who want to make a robot/cd changer/whatever.
I wish that more companies would follow the recent examples of Lego and the BBC; instead of just sending out legal threats and public announcements as a reaction to something they should consider why people are doing it. The BBC realised that people were recording and distributing Dr.Who and while they took a hardline on this (as it is, after all, piracy) they also decided that they should make their shows available on the internet as people are obviously looking for other ways to view their favourite shows. Here, Lego have taken the rational direction and thought "how does it harm us?" and have realised it doesn't, it just opens more creative dimensions. Companies rarely have anything to gain by sending constant legal threats (recent examples include RIAA and the MPAA) and may do well to think of why people are doing it in the first place, and how they can change their stance for mutual benefit.
Matthew Grint Midnight Artists
I am sure that many people only know about this application because of Lego's allowing people to hack it. I had not heard of it until I read this thread. Regardless of how many units they might lose from this hack, they will make money from increased awareness. How many people do you think read this /. thread and tried the program for the first time?
Information wants a fueled airplane waiting at the hangar and no one gets hurt.
Depending on the mix of bricks in the different bags, this could be an interesting knapsack (partition) problem, as in NP-tricky.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
I'd be curious as to whether Lego has ever considered making blocks using materials other than plastic, such as steel, ceramic, or glass. That would open a whole new range of possibilities to adults including practical applications.
Look, I made a miniature working Bessemer converter!
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
Lego is also losing money hand over fist....
Monstar L
This is going to be the best prom ever, eh?
i already made a hack for that thing to be able to use all blocks without limits.. :/
Hobbyists have been changing Lego's own designs for decades. This is just a natural progression along that path.
Lego is the original "Rip, Remix and Burn" passtime and I'm glad to see that they're sticking to their heritage. Three cheers for lego! Can you imagine the MPAA packaging ripping, video editing and burning tools with all that extra space on the DVDs?
My 3D Texturing Skinning work (under construction)
This is going to be the best prom ever, eh?
Sadly, I read that as:
This is going to be the best PORM ever, eh?
-- i am jack's amusing sig file
With the patents of basic Lego (and even 1985 flat pieces, technic and space lego) having expired I hope more Chinese toy makers will make all plastic toys Lego compatible.
Would it not be great if kids who prefer playing with toy soldiers over building with Lego would still use their old lego to build bridges to blow up as the hole on the toy soldiers feet would be compatible with lego. If the interconnects between rockets, rocket-launcer, vehicle and hide-out could be hooked up to any of the other plastic toys?
By doing this, Lego is providing a better service to their customers promoting increased sales in the future. Trying to rope your customers into buying things they do not want may increase sales in the short term but doesn't make sense long term.
It's also refreshing to see the word 'hack' used positively by news media.
Is it really possibly to buy too many legos?
errr....just as soon as I finish building my chapagne glass.
Hey, I'm a twenty year old American slashdotter! We do exist, I swear!
Nobody denied your existence. But, you were beat out by a bunch of twelve year olds! What does that say? Think about it.
They've always been happy about people hacking their stuff. The only time they did have to complain is when some people wrote software for their Mindstorms stuff that used the LEGO name. Under trademark law they have to do that or lose control of the name. (All the other plastic block companies could call their stuff LEGO too, compatable or not.)
A class act. I guess people taking their stuff and building it into something else is kind of their philosophy.
Why not just go Open Source?
Sigs are for the weak.
They threatened to sue me... http://www.livejournal.com/users/gthing/78721.html
or else!
I guess this was a believable arguement? oh well, I lose sorry.
"how can they call it a MINE if everything here is THEIRS?!?!" -Straight Jacket
Well, as I recall the software is free.
Which means Lego recognizes that fostering interest in Lego building is worth far more to them than preventing you from making their software more useful.
This hack can't decrease their revenues in any way. And it might make them some longer term sales/goodwill, and that has a kit if value. I'm impressed they're tuned in enough to know this.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
When building your robot, just remember to use more of these and less of these. Your body will thank you.
-Rob
Biblical fiscal responsibility
It can decrease their revenues because people will buy fewer extra lego blocks to complete their project.
(Not that I wouldn't mind seeing a little competition keep prices lower on real Legos!)
A post a day keeps productivity at bay.
I tried the program and maybe I missed something but it ran like crap on my machine. Its not a supercompter but a 1.7 Pentium M with a gig of ram and 64m Radeon 9000 should be able to run it fine. I mean, I could play WoW on this laptop without to much of a fuss. What gives?
Hmmm... those "Brick 2 x 2 x 2 Round with Fins" don't seem "anatomy friendly" at all...
By "hobiest" you mean those who are more hob than anybody else? If you don't know, the House of Blues is closed because of hurricane Katrina.
Now if they could just find a way to "hack" the program so that it actualy works, that would be nice. It does not work for me or my brother on either of our (completely different) computers.
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The Brick Testament is the Bible enacted all out of Legos, and if religion isn't your thing there's always Lego Porn.
huh, huh, all right! giggity giggity giggity!
Someone get this to the guy who built a Lego version of Serenity from Firefly.
I need to know what to buy!
So, if your car eats 20 liters of gas per 100 km and you patch it to consume about 7, you might get sued.
But something must be terribly wrong if a company is considered to be good for just not doing evil things. I'm not trying to say that what Lego is doing is not enough (actually, it's great that in this we-sue-you economy some companies do what they think is right and think not just of money but also of making customers happy) but the fact that making a product you use better is not considered by a mere fraction of companies makes me shiver.
www.legos.com
If I had any mod points, you'd be +insightful (since funny is broken).
Neither does a rubber fist, if you think about it. Different strokes for different folks...
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
The thing is with Lego is they want people to play with their stuff. Build, hack, smash, it's all the same to them. Just don't let it gather dust!
I can envision a block-exchange market that matches builders so that they can complete their individual projects with a minimal join purchase. It could get absurdly complex if you didn't keep strict bounds on the design parameters, but even a very simple function would be quite useful, and easily doable as a personal project.
-I like my women like I like my tea: green-
I thought the Cluetrain has arrived a few years ago...
Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.
I found the link on a similar story on Geek.com:
_ tix_files
http://brickwiki.zapto.org/index.php/Category:LDD
The LDD tool is pretty cool, but I wish it would allow you to print build instructions like those that come with other LEGO kits. It would also be nice if you could modify the build instructions--currently, it seems that the build instructions are created according to how the model was built. If you move a part around late in the design, it keeps the original time the part was added, which may mask parts that were placed in their final position before the piece was moved.
Still, all in all, a fun product!
--- Standard disclaimer applies.