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June 24, 2009

Should device manufacturers make their firmware open source?

Independent film makers have developed a firmware update to Canon's 5D Mark II digital SLR. What should Canon do about it?

By Savio Rodrigues
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Very cool news that a group of independent filmmakers (with programming skills) have developed a firmware update to the Canon 5D Mark II digital SLR.  According to the team:

The software in video mode has limitations, even after the recent 1.1.0 upgrade from Canon that fixed the most glaring manual exposure "bug".

That's where Magic Lantern comes in -- it turns your 5D Mark II into a 5D Mark Free. We've written extensions and widgets that fix many of the annoyances in working with the 5D Mark II on a film or video set. Our first set of fixes are targeted at the audio limitations of the camera, but there are some video enhancements included, too:

* On-screen audio meters
* Disabled AGC
* Manual gain control
* Zebra stripes (video peaking)
* Crop marks for 16:9, 2.35:1 and 4:3

They've released the Magic Lantern firmware under the GPL and are seeking donations, programmers with ARM assembly or embedded systems skills, and folks who don't mind risking their expensive 5D Mark II cameras.

[ Keep up with the latest open source news with InfoWorld's open source newsletter and topic center. ]

Reading the 5D-II forum, the response has been quite positive.  I'm not a lawyer, but the EULA seems to have terms and conditions that restrict the work done by the Magic Lantern team.  This begs the question, what should Canon do about, or as a result of, Magic Lantern?

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acoliver 24-Jun-09 5:59am
If they wrote their update from scratch and it isn't based on the existing firmware code then they're not bound to that firmware's EULA because they've ceased to be an end user and licensee and are using different software. Just like I'm not bound to the OS X license as I've replaced it with Ubuntu Linux on my laptop.
tedlschroeder 24-Jun-09 9:24am
One of the reasons that Alteon WebSystems did so well in the NIC business was because we made the driver and the firmware available to anyone who wanted it. This allowed us to move onto platforms that our competitors (mostly Intel) didn't support and made our gigabit Ethernet NIC the most popular. Although this wasn't truly open source, as we had a regular license, it was made freely available for anyone to use. As long as the hardware holds the magic, it's a great idea to release the firmware.
RamboTribble 24-Jun-09 9:56am
Canon would be foolish to attack a project so clearly a part of their own community. This project only strengthens Canon's position in the market.
jdudeck 24-Jun-09 10:04am
I never understood why Canon or a third party hasn't tweaked their SLR firmware to work with the older Sigma lenses. Some Sigma lenses will work if set to wide open aperture, but give errors when stopped down. Although the lenses don't behave properly by Canon's standard, there's no technical reason why they can't be accommodated in firmware.
BigRonG 29-Jun-09 7:22am
It's the digital age - which divides the creators and the digital natives. The creators function like they have for decades and the natives see new possibilities. So - the question is how much respect do the natives owe to the creators and how open should the creators be to change? The creators face warrantee issues, lawsuits, and shareholder oversight and the natives - well - they can do whatever they wish. Natives need to recognize why the creators have difficulty changing. Creators need to recognize that natives don't have a 'mental' paradyme change. They are digital from the get-go - and as such actively seek to conquer their world. If we can't get together, the natives face the problem of lack of accountability - and the creators face the loss of the business. It may take the demise of the creators before the dominance issue is solved. And when the responsibility falls on the natives, we will see how mature they are.

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