[kken]

You are being really naive and unfair here.

Saleae suffered a lot from chinese copycats. People copied their hardware for pennies, while saleae was fair enough to provide their software without copy protection.

I think it is only fair they release custom hardware now.

[ChuckMcM]

Unfair I might concede but not naive. I've been doing circuit development for a long time. I also have a challenge with 'copied for pennies.' Software you can copy for pennies but hardware really does require some tooling which is not 'pennies'.

There is a market for 'soft' test equipment. The amount of margin available in that market it something worth debating. I've got a USB oscilloscope that has proprietary software that only works on Windows XP, I've got a Tek475 oscilloscope with similar specs from 1981 that works on anything. They both cost about the same amount (just under $300) The point (for me at least) is that the 'softness' of test equipment, where it relies on a third party OS/computer to work) has a negative value coefficient. I know that at some point its going to be worthless, unlike the Tek scope which, as long as it can be calibrated, will have intrinsic value.

That is what I like about the SUMP based designs that DP did. They took the risk away by publishing all their source and letting me decide if I'm willing to do the work (or hire someone to do the work) of keeping the test gear running on my current hardware. I get tired of the 'Atmel' based digital o'scopes but eventually we'll get a decent open source front end and then all bets will be off in terms of being able to make something useful, and more important to me durable. I'd like my test gear to have an expected 20 - 30 year lifespan, it isn't like the test problems change.