[Greg McKaskle]

I can confirm that the beta test ran pretty much the same as most others I've been a part of. People have good intentions, they are gung-ho and sign up for the beta, but then life happens and there are only so many hours in the day. Some teams are able to be far more active than others. I suspect you will continue to see code posted in the coming weeks. Beta testing is certainly not easy, and not fun. The additional responsibilities placed on the team may indeed cause them to excel, but it is more likely to be organizational rather than competitive success, IMO.

As for the LV upgrade, I'm glad to hear you are looking forward to it, and I'm sorry to disappoint, but you will have to use 2009 tools until kickoff. There have been a number of presentations detailing the new feature to the WPI libs, and I'll be happy to wax poetic about new features, but the SW is part of the kit of parts, and my observation is that if it isn't brand new, then it will likely be treated as any other kit element. At least they still allow us to present and teach about the new features before kick-off.

As for open sourcing WPI Lib, the following is placed in each file in the LabVIEW WPI Lib implementation, and presumably in each file of the other language implementations as well.

* Copyright (c) 2009 FIRST, NATIONAL INSTRUMENTS, WORCESTER POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE AND THEIR LICENSORS

* All rights reserved.
*
* Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
* modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:
* * Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
* notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
* * Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
* notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
* documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
* * Neither the names of FIRST, NATIONAL INSTRUMENTS, WORCESTER POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE, THEIR LICENSORS-nor the
* names of their contributors may be used to endorse or promote products
* derived from this software without specific prior written permission.
*
* THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY FIRST, NATIONAL INSTRUMENTS AND WORCESTER POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE AND THEIR CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND ANY
* EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED
* WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE
* DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL FIRST, NATIONAL INSTRUMENTS, WORCESTER POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE OR THIER CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY
* DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES
* (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES;
* LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND
* ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT
* (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS
* SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

I'm no lawyer, but that seems pretty open source, and with a public repository such as FirstForge, all sorts of team-improved features could become part of the libraries or could spawn alternative derivations. On the other hand, this doesn't remove the benefit of targeted beta programs, especially when there is HW being developed in tandem. It always has more limited availability. So, perhaps in the future the SW development will be a combination of all these good ideas.

Greg McKaskle