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Unread 06-12-2006, 00:12
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Re: Ethics 101: To re-use or not to re-use?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dave Scheck
Would you think the same way if this pertained to mechanical design? Would you force teams to make their gearbox design public if they intended to use it from year to year? (I know that the software/mechanical comparison isn't easily made, but humor me).
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kris Verdeyen
Yes.

I agree that the comparison is not easily made, and I've tried, but why not? Year after year, and with nearly every chance they get, FIRST rules in a way that makes the game more competitive, the robots better, the compeitition more fun to watch. Why should completely spilling the beans on last year's robot be any different? It's good for good teams, because it encourages them to continue to innovate, and it's good for struggling teams because it demystifies the champion teams in a way that is bound to inspire them to strive further. It makes the pie higher.
Why is it good to hand someone something on a silver platter instead of making them work to attain it? If you put together all the time that team 254 and it's partners in collaboration have spent developing a six wheeled drive base, I'm sure the figure would exceed the thousand hour mark by far. Why should such teams be forced to give everyone in FIRST a transmission design they can hand to a machinist and get back a week later when it took the original teams a thousand hours to perfect the design?

Now by no means am I against sharing designs. Anyone who wants to know anything about our drivetrain, for example, can feel free to ask me or any other student/mentor about it. I'm sure 968 feels the same way. We'll gladly share pictures, theory on how it works, why we did what we did, what we might change and do differently. However, we are not going to handout blueprints. What's the point of that? What is any student going to learn by handing a sheaf of CAD drawings to a machinist and then receiving a nice shiny transmission back? The answer is nothing. You would be cheating yourself.

FIRST is about learning, and nobody learns anything if teams are forced to share code, mechanical systems, or anything else just to use them again. All that would happen is the original teams efforts are completely ignored and everyone reaps the benefits without any of the work. So much more could be learned by simply approaching a team with a innovative and successful idea and learning about how it works from them, and then implement it yourself.
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Unread 06-12-2006, 02:04
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Re: Ethics 101: To re-use or not to re-use?

<R71> Unaltered software modules developed during prior competitions may not be directly re-used. Just as designs for hardware COMPONENTS may be reused from one year to the next, software algorithms and designs may be reused. However, the specific lines of code must be customized for each robot each year.

The plain English of R71 is clear. It disallows the reuse of unaltered software modules, allows the reuse of software algorithms and designs, and requires that modules be customized for the robot each year. The rule was clear and easy to satisfy, hence no Q&A activity regarding it.

The business of retyping code developed outside of the allowed work periods in order to make it legal is a red herring from a prior season. It did not apply this past season, probably because more than one person saw teams busily retyping their entire robot program in order to legalize it in a prior season, while the "illegal copy" ran the robot during practice matches, and realized the foolishness of this rule. Retyping modules, verbatim, did not satisfy the plain English of R71.

Sharing is one of the key principles of the FIRST community. Sharing has been encouraged and has been expressed in many ways: design ideas, actual parts, actual software, etc..., have all been shared. From the point of view of the FIRST community, there is everything to gain and nothing to lose by sharing at any level that you are comfortable with. If someone walked up to me at a competition and asked for a copy of the source code for our robot I would hand it to them without a second thought. I would like to think that the recipient would learn something from it. The same goes for any of the mechanical aspects and wiring aspects of our robot, in any level of detail. I would encourage every team to share at any level of detail that they are comfortable with as nothing but good can come of it.

I am not one to think, however, that we should have rules that force sharing. Forcing sharing is as much an anathema to FIRST principles as is the notion of seeing a robot covered by a black shroud to conceal "trade secrets" while it is in the pits. There are so many teams eager to share that we need not make teams uncomfortable by forcing sharing upon them.

If the past experience is our guide, the rules for software development will change again this year. The notion of treating the software like hardware misses some of the fundamental aspects of software development. Suppose we were to place the same "customize modules" requirement on CNC software used to turn out identical parts that are used in a team's robot year to year. Just what purpose would customizing the CNC program have, only to have it turn out exactly the same part. A module that implements interrupt driven wheel counters is exactly the same. The end result is the count, no more or less than that. The role of customization here is exactly the same as a rule of customization for the CNC program that turns out exactly the same axle as last year.

I would hope that the rules for software development get changed so that they reflect the nature of the software development process. There isn't any need to customize a software module that provides wheel counters, and that the program for the robot will be customized given that each game is entirely new, is a given. Lacking that, it is best to follow a reasonable interpretation of whatever the rules may turn out to be.

Eugene

Last edited by eugenebrooks : 06-12-2006 at 02:18.
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