Quote from: jbcheng on April 07, 2014, 09:09:06 AM

Quote from: jimrome on April 07, 2014, 01:36:51 AM

~~Two~~ A few questions:

will your driver and/or mining software be open source?
In the case where GPL code is used, will you respect the license and post your modifications? You know, unlike your competitors (I'm looking at you bitmain and lketc ).
will you make your circuit schematic docs open source - or at least available as PDF?

If the answer to the above questions is 'no' how exactly do you expect customers to maintain/repair your products?

One more question: how long do you plan to support the product e.g. firmware updates for bug fixes, new miner software versions, and performance improvements?

Hi all,

As I said I just can answer the question regarding the sales and distribution. some of these questions will involve technical and I may not be able to give the perfect answer. While I will answer first and beeminer will make up if I missed some.
1, We use CGminer as mining software and we based on the open sources CG and developed by our own team to suit our hardware. at the current stage, we will not be able to open source. I believe others won't either.
2, I can not answer this question at the moment while our Beeminer.com will have support document in the near future for end users to upgrade the firmware and some technical support.

for all the products we sell out we will provide 90 days repairing and replace warranty. While we will not bear the mining lose during the repair and replacement. we will make sure all the product is working fine before sending out. and when customer received the unit you need do some generally checking especially the wire connection before fire up.

Thanks

Jbcheng

As per the GPL license you must supply source code and all modifications. This is mandatory.

Here are some relevant snippets from https://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html:

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When we speak of free software, we are referring to freedom, not price. Our General Public Licenses are designed to make sure that you have the freedom to distribute copies of free software (and charge for them if you wish), that you receive source code or can get it if you want it, that you can change the software or use pieces of it in new free programs, and that you know you can do these things.

To protect your rights, we need to prevent others from denying you these rights or asking you to surrender the rights. Therefore, you have certain responsibilities if you distribute copies of the software, or if you modify it: responsibilities to respect the freedom of others.

For example, if you distribute copies of such a program, whether gratis or for a fee, you must pass on to the recipients the same freedoms that you received. You must make sure that they, too, receive or can get the source code. And you must show them these terms so they know their rights.

and...

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Some devices are designed to deny users access to install or run modified versions of the software inside them, although the manufacturer can do so. This is fundamentally incompatible with the aim of protecting users' freedom to change the software. The systematic pattern of such abuse occurs in the area of products for individuals to use, which is precisely where it is most unacceptable. Therefore, we have designed this version of the GPL to prohibit the practice for those products. If such problems arise substantially in other domains, we stand ready to extend this provision to those domains in future versions of the GPL, as needed to protect the freedom of users.