Disklavier

Here's an idea ... we all presumably love our Disklaviers so I mean 
this in the spirit of community 'helping guide' (not complaining).  
But what if we all drafted something that outlined say our Top 
10 'wish list' items for the future (and present) and we each sent 
that list independently to Yamaha - so they hear the same thing from 
a lot of Disklavier owners?  Another way, of course, would be to send 
a single e-mail but with anyone who wanted to participates name on 
it.  Hopefully if they heard from their loyal owners they might be 
moved to adapt some of the feedback into the roadmap ... 

Or, better yet, does anyone know who the Product Manager for 
Disklavier is at Yamaha, would be great to go right to the source. 

Regards,
Jason

--- In disklavier@yahoogroups.com, Carl Youngblood <carl@...> wrote:
>
> Hear! Hear!  If anyone from Yamaha is listening, please do 
everything  
> you can to convince them to open-source the software portion of 
their  
> systems and expose public APIs whereever it makes sense to do so.   
> It's very common for hardware companies to open-source the drivers  
> for their systems, since they make money off the hardware and not 
the  
> software, and it promotes goodwill among consumers and increases 
the  
> value of their product, since they are in essence getting free 
labor  
> from hordes of hobbyists who have more time and resources to 
develop  
> the product than they do.
> 
> Carl Youngblood
> 
> On Nov 7, 2006, at 12:11 PM, Mark Fontana wrote:
> > Making the Mark IV more of an open system would benefit the user  
> > community
> > greatly, especially a decade or two from now when Yamaha may have 
no
> > desire to continue supporting the product themselves. At that  
> > point, the
> > Linux-based control computer will be obsolete, parts for it will 
be  
> > hard
> > to find, the PDA remote will have long since failed, etc. Yet, the
> > solenoid control system and sensor "guts" of the Disklavier may  
> > still be
> > perfectly functional, and the piano itself will be fine.
> >
> > I can easily see a third party interfacing a new front-end to 
those
> > components to keep the system going, but given the complexity of 
the
> > system, it may be difficult without help from Yamaha. And, with 
the
> > current flurry of anti-interoperability lawsuits, by the time it  
> > becomes
> > necessary to do this work, it may be *illegal* without Yamaha's  
> > blessing.
> >
> > Mark Fontana
>