Disklavier

A nice idea, but I think that is unlikely to happen. The Japanese 
mindset doesn't seem to cope particularly well with the idea of open 
source (not that the western world does either).

However, Yamaha do have an obligation to give customers the source code 
for the portions of GPL code they have modified. Looking at the 
disklavier update, there are modifications of the distribution they have 
used, but I haven't looked further to see if there are additions to the 
kernel or other software present.

It would be really cool if Yamaha did go further down the open source 
route, and make the code for the main GUI and core recording / playback 
features available. They wouldn't have to disclose the details of their 
CD / pianosmart encoding formats as this could remain a closed source 
module, but it would allow third party developers to add all sorts of 
cool features (ignoring the fact that there are at least two 
implementations of the Yamaha Pianosoft+Audio format out there, and 
numerous ESEQ implementations).

I suspect the main reason against providing the code is the risk of 
increased support costs - users could get viruses on their system, or 
potentially destroy the operating system and lose their data, and so 
Yamaha may want to distance themselves from this.

Ah well, we can dream I guess - like I have to dream about a Mark IV 
upright ;-)

Regards,

James

Carl Youngblood wrote:
> I don't have a disklavier but hope to own one someday when I win the 
> lottery.  However, I bet it would not be too hard to hack into the 
> computer and change the software.  It would be a lot easier if Yamaha 
> would simply open-source everything, which would allow hobbyists to 
> improve it to their hearts' content.  But it could probably still be 
> done by a clever hacker.  I think the real reason you haven't seen a 
> lot of this already is that the barrier to entry is so high.  Low-end 
> commodity computer peripherals get hacked liked crazy and before you 
> know there are hundreds of sites where you can download firmware 
> upgrades and new features, but disklaviers are so expensive that they 
> aren't ever going to get any attention.
>
> On Nov 9, 2006, at 1:56 AM, Ian Woof wrote:
>
>>
>> Bill,
>>
>>  
>>
>> I echo wholeheartedly Tom\ufffds comments both in terms of appreciating 
>> your participation in this message board and the requests for 
>> enhancements that Tom made. Unfortunately though, your comments 
>> highlight a further issue, in that, I have been following two 
>> Disklavier message boards in which you participate and it is now 
>> clear that Yamaha has been receiving this features feedback for 
>> approaching two years and are either failing to act at all or quickly 
>> enough.
>>
>