[funkaster]

huh? the only thing closed is the bootloader, which is ok-ish I think. Everything else in the toolchain is open source. Paul is a terrific guy and provides great support in the forums. You can find the schematics, gerber files, etc in the webpage as well. What part would you like to be open source specifically?

[fermienrico]

I think releasing the source code and open-source are 2 different things. Paul is an amazing guy, I absolutely cannot argue - he is super cool.

Open-source means I have the license to use it in ways that are defined in an agreement outlined in the specific open source license (say MIT license). Paul provides a bunch of stuff for their users, but I cannot copy his designs and bootloader (which is closed) in a commercial project without taking on liability.

The problem is a philosophical one as well - Half-open or "visible source" projects exploit benefits of the open-source community (engagement, contributions, feedback, etc.) without giving anything back to the community (license to reproduce freely). I have a problem with this. Either make something completely closed source (totally fine) or make it completely open source. Another example is Numworks calculator ("visible source" under CC license, wtf is wrong with these people) : https://github.com/numworks/epsilon/issues/38

The Numworks guys are just getting free labor which is all the enthusiasts working on the code without paying anything back to the community! Completely abhorrent behavior and should be exposed.

[funkaster]

100% agree with you, but in this case, I believe most (if not all?) the code is under a bsd-like license. Take a look at the top of this file: https://github.com/PaulStoffregen/cores/blob/master/teensy4/...

[funkaster]

also, the design is encouraged to be used in commercial projects. Paul even sells the bootloader chip programmed for your own designs. There’s a specific section in the forum for those use cases.