Watch the full review here
BQ Witbox Review Disclaimer
Hi everyone, Tom here, and if you’re watching this, you probably want to see the Witbox review. Thing is, i don’t think i should let you watch that as is. Because. In the review you are about to watch i call out bq for applying for a bullshit patent and also for not really releasing the sources of the Witbox as open source hardware. And that contributed an enormous part to my overall impression of the Witbox and of bq. Now, the day after i uploaded that review, bq’s management called in a meeting to discuss what they can do to address the issues i pointed out. No, it did not involve paying me a lump of cash to make this disclaimer video – not that i’d accept such an offer anyways, but the first thing they decided on was to dump the patent. It’s gone. And i think that’s pretty awesome! Next, they decided to put an even stronger focus on making the design files accessible to everyone – it used to be a design for Autodesk Inventor, a proprietary, industry-level CAD package. And they are now porting the entire design and them some to FreeCAD, a / free, open source CAD package that is available to anyone. And that’s very, very nice, too. Lastly, the license of the Witbox and of others bq’s 3D printing products was changed to a Creative Commons attribution, share-alike version, dropping the non-commercial clause which meant that it was not really a license in the open-source spirit. And while that’s pretty neat, too, it doesn’t really change a lot since licenses don’t actually protect physical parts – anyone may copy them no matter what license was used for the design files. Still, it is a very decent move, and along with the dropped patent and the switch to open CAD tools, it really shows a bit of a change in mentality about what open source really means to bq.
You know, sometimes, all it takes is a kick in the nuts to get things going.
Anyways, here’s the video you came here for. Take it with a grain of salt, but also, while the company politics have a changed a bit, the hardware itself is still the exact same, so all the points i make about # that in the review still apply. The next version taking the criticism into account is actively ebing devoloped now, and of course, i’ll be reviewing that once it’s \ released.
So, i’m going to shut up now and let past me do the talking. If you can’t click the annotation on-screen, you can also use the link in this video’s description.
Music by Arne Huseby