The GPL is a license on distribution, not monetization. They are breaking the license by not releasing the source code of the modified GPL software they are distributing with their hardware. They could actually charge for it (really they are though the hardware), but they'd still need to make the source available to everyone they distributed it to. ZWO also use a lot of LGPL libraries (like INDI) that they are not required to release the source code for. They're building their business on the work of other people, and then stealing it by not abiding by the license that allows them to use the software in the first place. Also, the Stellarmate Pro is another small dedicated mini-pc for astro. I use a Mele Quieter 3 running Kstars/Ekos/Indi. There is nothing particularly special about any of this hardware. The vast majority of the value is in the software.
@@TheNarrowbandChannel Absolutely correct. The overseas companies very often don't respect software licenses. Although it seems that QHY has put all their code up on Github now, and may be trying to play by the rules. I'm in favor of this, and may even contribute to the project. Time will tell.
Add to that the fact that open-sourcing the ASIAIR software would eventually lead to someone forking it and adding in everything ZWO won't, which would undermine their entire closed ecosystem.
@BigTylt Well, it doesn't change the fact. They even do so willingly. They certainly knew from the beginning and knew they would need to reimplement a ton. So they choose to violate the license.
Nina is the alternative. Once you start using Nina you will never want to use anything else. Very easy to buy a mini-pc and install Nina and all your drivers. My life has become so easy using Nina. The Advanced Sequencer is amazing.
Except you can't run NINA on your cell phone. I run 2 rigs at night totally off my cell phone, frequently from my bed. Can't do that with Nina which requires a PC to control.😮
@@dadwhitsett Actually you could run it off your phone. I usually opt for the bigger screen of my Ipad and run it from my Ipad. Cuiv the Lazy Geek did a video on it a while back and it works very good.
@@dadwhitsett I am also running two rigs and both use NINA. While true, NINA's mobile UI is basically non-existent, I made my own home assistant dashboard that does all the monitoring for me. And at this point for my location, NINA has so many useful features like custom horizon that I don't even bother checking on either of my rigs once started. Even mosaics are completely automated with zoer intervention needed.
When touptek comes out with their solution, I will be one of the first in line to buy it. That is if it supports other brands of gear. Unlike Zwo that has proprietary lock on their product.
legally under the GPL license, they have to release their source code. If you use open source software in your product and you make modifications to it under the license, you were supposed to publicly release the source code for your modifications. If you don’t do that, you are in violation of the license. Even if you only use the open source software as a basis for your own software and not charging people money for the software doesn’t release you from that obligation if you’re using it in a commercial product.
@@TheNarrowbandChannel well that’s the thing, the open source community is mostly volunteer based they don’t have the money to sue a large company like ZWO. It’s more the principle of the matter. Just because no one prosecutes the crime doesn’t mean it’s not a crime ZWO is literally getting rich by breaking the licensing agreement for the software and not returning any kind of benefit or revenue to the creators of that software.
If all the rage becomes ubiquitous across all astronomers will astronomy be a better place? Will more people want to be a part of it? Will it bring more good will? How is this helping us? What about all the other instances of people improving the open source standards that you or I have never heard off. There must be many of them. Do we get upset about the tree that fell in the woods that we do not know about?
@@TheNarrowbandChannel Sorry but I find your argumentation a bit skewed. Although yes technically no one has been financially hurt in this story, the law is the law and if ZWO is breaking it, they should be held accountable. It isn't because no one is crying foul that we should let bullying corporations do as they please. Also do remember that ZWO is a chinese company and that in their country, copyright laws are basically non-existent, so they believe that they can reproduce this behavior around the world, which is something that I believe we shouldn't let slide. Also you say that this situation is not harming the hobby, and while I admit that I absolutely love the AsiAir and that it's been a game changer, if we let companies abuse open source software licensing obligations, well I guarantee you that it will definitely demoralize all those amazing people creating these free softwares in the first place. Ultimately leading to a lack of innovation in this wonderful hobby....
@@TheNarrowbandChannel to be fair I don't really have a dog in the fight. I own an ASIAir. but my point is, ZWO Can easily comply with the requirements but they choose not to. They have been notified of their non compliance and they essentially told the developers to go screw themselves. I think it's BS that they do that. I can not deny that they have brought more people into the hobby. I cannot Deny that they have made great advances in the hobby. But I Also acknowledge that they have gone a messed up route to do so. I was just trying to explain to you why there is the Outrage. The ends don't necessarily justify the means. They have "Stolen" The intellectual property of Other Developers. Made Millions off of their hard work and then given them the middle finger essentially. If you are Ok with that, then that's on you. As I stated. I know all of this and I own an ASIair, A 2600MC Pro a 533 MC pro as well as an EAF...
I had the worst experience with stellarmate ever. Very unstable, unreluable without any support. Submitted about 10 bugs - all of them got "wont fix". Nina is much better and free. My worst investment in astronomy
Nice video! I have an AsiAir Plus and a ToupTek AstroStation. The Touptek gadget I was able to obtain via one of my dealer contacts in China. 😁 Since about 2 months the AstroStation is making big progress. I already capture some multi night pictures with it. It works great. Just few smaller adjustments and it will be ready to rock. Unfortunately a Sky Atlas is still missing even though I am sure Touptek already has is in a not distributed version already. Once this one is available I may get rid of my AsiAir as the Touptek AstroStation is much more versitile. For my second rig I still have NINA on a mini PC which is controled via Remote Desktop from my tablet. Or I just run three rigs in paralell if I get another camera. 😂
That is great that you have the AstroStation. I really want one. I have contact with Touptek directly but they have not been willing to send me one yet. Hope they do soon.
You _would_ be correct about the "software" if ZWO did not modify the open source software they used to make the AA. ZWO have modified the source and therefore your assumption about it being legally OK is entirely incorrect. Don't take my word for it, ask any of the opensouce developers like the NINA guys for yourself. Ironically perhaps, given the tone of the video, QHY and Stellarmate are legally compliant witht the licences applicable.
Which or how many of these open standards is suing ZWO? If none perhaps there are legal reasons they are allowed too? Or maybe they do not care and neither should we? Forum posts get some people way to worked up and often have no benefit to the industry and are even toxic to it.
@@TheNarrowbandChannel You could find out for yourself as indicated rather than this "some people are saying" level of wild speculation. Personally when a coumpany takes advantage of the little guy I usually side with the little guy, but you do you, bro.
@@TheNarrowbandChannel good luck suing someone in china. do you really think that small open source developers have the resources to go after large companies that are protected by hostile foreign nations? get serious shill.
Just google ZWO's violations of open source licensing in the ASIair. They can do this because they are a big company with a budget for lawyers, plus the fact Chinese companies couldn't care less about copyright. I'm new to dedicated astronomy cameras but from the start it's clear to me Zwo is playing a very dirty game here. You're free to support whoever you want but that doesn't make it right.
I have been in Astrophotography since 2005. I was also ignored or teased about my involvement in Mac. Our house fire in 2013 put our involvement on the back burner. When we stopped the advance was bluetooth. I had to stand by our picture window to use the cameras inside or brave 0 to -10 degrees. When i started to do this again in Jan 2024 i was amazed at what ZWO had brought to market. Until Touptek brings the software up to date I will continue being a ZWO snob. Thanks for your insight..
As you briefly touched on, do you think any of these will ever support Olympus/OM cameras without having to be a coder yourself? Did you make any progress with the Stellarmate + OMD/OM?
Stellarmate works with OM cameras but I myself do not have a setup running them yet. It's been a time thing and I was rather cancer sick for about 3-4 months but getting better now. Maybe I can make it happen and show the OM community how.
I think biggest issue with something outside ASIAir is lack of good software. EKOS - is horrible - horrible UI, I didn't manage to use one. There is no decent live stacking software on Linux. Additionally you need good UI that can be displayed at tablet - and this is also lacking. (ok besides my project 🙂) I myself work on OpenLiveStacker (it has tourch screen optimized UI) but it mostly does live stacking and plate solving (for lightweight EAA on a go). No mount control integration, PHD2 or polar alignment yet.
Very interesting Ben there is the Stellarmate but even now that still seems pretty buggy, I do hope there will be more competition in the market as I myself don't run ZWO cameras but Altair ones simply because myself & the company are based in the UK so should any issues arise I can get them dealt with swiftly. Not only that but I've had an astro station on order since July & I were hoping it would be here by now before going to a star party next week but I don't think it will be happening now sadly.
On an other hand, stellarmate is much better now than one year ago, if you haven't use it in a long time and still looking for a solution that doesn't imply locking you up in zwo prison, you should try it
I to have Stellarmate. It's powerful but a lot to figure out. I was actually going to mention it in the video but then it was starting to get too long.
Your explination of the legal issues around asiair is a misunderstanding of how software licenses work, in particular open source "free software" licenses are "copy left" meaning if you modify the source in a production product, you are required to freely distribute the changes to that code completely. In other words, if you use it then you have to disclose it completely, which would give zwo less of a competitive advantage. It has notging to do with paying for or not paying for updates or software... free software is about enforcing free as in "freedom" not free as in gratis. The idea is transparency of the code and freedom for anyone to update, fix, or fork the code for any purpose as long as they release that code to the public. The asiair is just using the indi servers/drivers and the phd2 integration found on the typical astroberry linux distro. This is the legal rub. They dont disclose the software running on the Pi, so its difficult to judge they are operating in the legal space. If you're a software engineer or contribute to free software, then these topics are closer to the heart than those who aren't.
I think it's a bolt statement to say qhy sucks without having tried it. I'm not a qhy user but I'm curious on what it is capable of. If the software is as good a s the asi air, it's pretty much a no brainer and I'm sure there's a way to get you hans on one
Good point. Im not far from Dylan just over the Queensland border. I do have a PoleMaster and the software is terrible. I don't use it anymore because i build an observatory some years ago.
Oddly, no one challenges ZWO in a real way. The UI is so simple and easy to learn, and the ASIAIRs are not that expensive. The field is ready for a generic competitor. The Stellarmate Pro is fantastic on paper but let down by its user interface.
It's a mystery why QHY won't bring the Star Master to not just the USA market but also Europe?? They're missing out on so much more revenue from all the extra sales?? Furthermore, competition with ZWO will great for customers because it will force them to reduce prices to compete with each other for market share!
Could it be QHY is worried about intellectual property as in it might be too much of a clone of the ASIAIR to not make it through a court challenge? China is much supposedly much more relaxed on such things than other countries.
@@richardhswan8069 That's a great point Richard. China essentially clones everything and cares nothing about intellectual property rights etc so that could well be the reason!
Some camera manufacturers such as Olympus do not market their smaller cameras in the USA because they think they will not sell, such as the E-M10iv. The USA is not the major market place, Asia-Pacific and Europe are bigger. Sad really and probably a bad marketing plan. If you ain't got them, you cannot sell them. Yes, we've got no bananas (old song, post-war banana shortage ;) )
There are 1.5 billion people in China. I guess that is enough client potential for QHY and Touptek for their astrocomputers. Also, the ASIAIR software is likely more advanced in terms of the GUI and is a huge competitive advantage. From what I understood, ZWO does not want to allow non-ZWO hardware because of the driver support.
Other than Cuiv, you all ignore the Stellarmate Pro. Not sure if thats on purpose or not. The Stellarmate will pretty much run any mix of equipment. It will also run either through a mobile device or laptop/desktop and can be run on a Macbook. It is larger and pricier but is an all in one controller that can also power your mount and dew heaters etc and has both WIFI and GPS etc
I actually shot some video for the Stellarmate but video was getting to long so u cut it. Another one that is never mentioned is indigo sky by cloudmakers
The way you claim ZWO deals with software is just a guess and wrong. It's opensource software and they don't follow the rules of the license. That is clearly wrong and not dealing with it. It's plain and simple wrong. ZWO apologists are just as bad as ZWO. If they published the changes to the software they stole then it would have been fine but they didn't.
Which or how many of these open standards is suing ZWO? If none perhaps there are legal reasons they are allowed too? Or maybe they do not care and neither should we? Forum posts get some people way to worked up and often have no benefit to the industry and are even toxic to it.
@@TheNarrowbandChannel it cost money to sue and these are often community projects. Just because someone breaks a license agreement because they have deeper pockets or they think they can get away with it doesn’t mean it’s right. So it’s also wrong to assume legal reasons rather than just reasons.
@@GregMcCall If all the rage becomes ubiquitous across all astronomers will astronomy be a better place? Will more people want to be a part of it? Will it bring more good will? How is this helping us? What about all the other instances of people improving the open source standards that you or I have never heard off. There must be many of them. Do we get upset about the tree that fell in the woods that we do not know about?
@@TheNarrowbandChannel I don’t know about any rage nor do I think many people care about much more than price. That still doesn’t make it right and still doesn’t justify skipping over a company’s wrong and their profiting over someone else’s software. If they were transparent, you’d have more of a point but they are not. Many (probably most) think it’s zwo innovation when really the indi kstars ekos software, the zwo products using them would not exist. Zwo deserves credit for putting it all in a hardware package and driving that idea in the industry but not the way they did it.
Has anyone filed a suit agains them yet? Or taken any form of legal action? If not why are we worried about this? Aren't there better ways to use our energy?
@@TheNarrowbandChannel Not really taking any side on this. But in terms of a lawsuit its unlikely to happen given they are based in China which makes suing them almost impossible. Companies have been sued in the US for violating GPL licensing before though.
Hahaha not I would never want to fight Dylan. I consider him one of my role models in this hobby. Dylan is really so cool! Probably the coolest and chillest geek in this hobby I know.
The GPL is a license on distribution, not monetization. They are breaking the license by not releasing the source code of the modified GPL software they are distributing with their hardware. They could actually charge for it (really they are though the hardware), but they'd still need to make the source available to everyone they distributed it to.
ZWO also use a lot of LGPL libraries (like INDI) that they are not required to release the source code for.
They're building their business on the work of other people, and then stealing it by not abiding by the license that allows them to use the software in the first place.
Also, the Stellarmate Pro is another small dedicated mini-pc for astro. I use a Mele Quieter 3 running Kstars/Ekos/Indi.
There is nothing particularly special about any of this hardware. The vast majority of the value is in the software.
Seams like most of what you said is what others have done too.
@@TheNarrowbandChannel Absolutely correct. The overseas companies very often don't respect software licenses. Although it seems that QHY has put all their code up on Github now, and may be trying to play by the rules. I'm in favor of this, and may even contribute to the project. Time will tell.
Add to that the fact that open-sourcing the ASIAIR software would eventually lead to someone forking it and adding in everything ZWO won't, which would undermine their entire closed ecosystem.
@BigTylt Well, it doesn't change the fact. They even do so willingly. They certainly knew from the beginning and knew they would need to reimplement a ton. So they choose to violate the license.
Nina is the alternative. Once you start using Nina you will never want to use anything else. Very easy to buy a mini-pc and install Nina and all your drivers. My life has become so easy using Nina. The Advanced Sequencer is amazing.
Very true! But you lost me at buying a mini pc.
Except you can't run NINA on your cell phone. I run 2 rigs at night totally off my cell phone, frequently from my bed. Can't do that with Nina which requires a PC to control.😮
@@dadwhitsett Actually you could run it off your phone. I usually opt for the bigger screen of my Ipad and run it from my Ipad. Cuiv the Lazy Geek did a video on it a while back and it works very good.
Just drag a laptop with all its cords outside and hope it doesn’t rain 😂
@@dadwhitsett I am also running two rigs and both use NINA. While true, NINA's mobile UI is basically non-existent, I made my own home assistant dashboard that does all the monitoring for me. And at this point for my location, NINA has so many useful features like custom horizon that I don't even bother checking on either of my rigs once started. Even mosaics are completely automated with zoer intervention needed.
When touptek comes out with their solution, I will be one of the first in line to buy it. That is if it supports other brands of gear. Unlike Zwo that has proprietary lock on their product.
It will probably be okay with indi drivers, but if you need or want ASCOM ... tough luck. Stupid Windows ...
legally under the GPL license, they have to release their source code. If you use open source software in your product and you make modifications to it under the license, you were supposed to publicly release the source code for your modifications. If you don’t do that, you are in violation of the license. Even if you only use the open source software as a basis for your own software and not charging people money for the software doesn’t release you from that obligation if you’re using it in a commercial product.
So who has opened legal action? If no one then its either not worth it or its probably legal. Least that is the deduction I would make.
@@TheNarrowbandChannel well that’s the thing, the open source community is mostly volunteer based they don’t have the money to sue a large company like ZWO.
It’s more the principle of the matter. Just because no one prosecutes the crime doesn’t mean it’s not a crime ZWO is literally getting rich by breaking the licensing agreement for the software and not returning any kind of benefit or revenue to the creators of that software.
If all the rage becomes ubiquitous across all astronomers will astronomy be a better place? Will more people want to be a part of it? Will it bring more good will? How is this helping us? What about all the other instances of people improving the open source standards that you or I have never heard off. There must be many of them. Do we get upset about the tree that fell in the woods that we do not know about?
@@TheNarrowbandChannel Sorry but I find your argumentation a bit skewed. Although yes technically no one has been financially hurt in this story, the law is the law and if ZWO is breaking it, they should be held accountable. It isn't because no one is crying foul that we should let bullying corporations do as they please. Also do remember that ZWO is a chinese company and that in their country, copyright laws are basically non-existent, so they believe that they can reproduce this behavior around the world, which is something that I believe we shouldn't let slide. Also you say that this situation is not harming the hobby, and while I admit that I absolutely love the AsiAir and that it's been a game changer, if we let companies abuse open source software licensing obligations, well I guarantee you that it will definitely demoralize all those amazing people creating these free softwares in the first place. Ultimately leading to a lack of innovation in this wonderful hobby....
@@TheNarrowbandChannel to be fair I don't really have a dog in the fight. I own an ASIAir. but my point is, ZWO Can easily comply with the requirements but they choose not to.
They have been notified of their non compliance and they essentially told the developers to go screw themselves.
I think it's BS that they do that. I can not deny that they have brought more people into the hobby. I cannot Deny that they have made great advances in the hobby. But I Also acknowledge that they have gone a messed up route to do so.
I was just trying to explain to you why there is the Outrage. The ends don't necessarily justify the means. They have "Stolen" The intellectual property of Other Developers. Made Millions off of their hard work and then given them the middle finger essentially. If you are Ok with that, then that's on you. As I stated. I know all of this and I own an ASIair, A 2600MC Pro a 533 MC pro as well as an EAF...
My next rig is build I'm going to control it with the Stellarmate pro. It seems to be the only competition to the ASI Air
I had the worst experience with stellarmate ever. Very unstable, unreluable without any support. Submitted about 10 bugs - all of them got "wont fix". Nina is much better and free. My worst investment in astronomy
Stellarmate has been doing a lot of improvements lately I hear.
Nice video!
I have an AsiAir Plus and a ToupTek AstroStation. The Touptek gadget I was able to obtain via one of my dealer contacts in China. 😁
Since about 2 months the AstroStation is making big progress. I already capture some multi night pictures with it. It works great. Just few smaller adjustments and it will be ready to rock. Unfortunately a Sky Atlas is still missing even though I am sure Touptek already has is in a not distributed version already. Once this one is available I may get rid of my AsiAir as the Touptek AstroStation is much more versitile. For my second rig I still have NINA on a mini PC which is controled via Remote Desktop from my tablet. Or I just run three rigs in paralell if I get another camera. 😂
That is great that you have the AstroStation. I really want one. I have contact with Touptek directly but they have not been willing to send me one yet. Hope they do soon.
You _would_ be correct about the "software" if ZWO did not modify the open source software they used to make the AA. ZWO have modified the source and therefore your assumption about it being legally OK is entirely incorrect. Don't take my word for it, ask any of the opensouce developers like the NINA guys for yourself. Ironically perhaps, given the tone of the video, QHY and Stellarmate are legally compliant witht the licences applicable.
Which or how many of these open standards is suing ZWO? If none perhaps there are legal reasons they are allowed too? Or maybe they do not care and neither should we? Forum posts get some people way to worked up and often have no benefit to the industry and are even toxic to it.
@@TheNarrowbandChannel You could find out for yourself as indicated rather than this "some people are saying" level of wild speculation.
Personally when a coumpany takes advantage of the little guy I usually side with the little guy, but you do you, bro.
@@TheNarrowbandChannel good luck suing someone in china. do you really think that small open source developers have the resources to go after large companies that are protected by hostile foreign nations? get serious shill.
Just google ZWO's violations of open source licensing in the ASIair. They can do this because they are a big company with a budget for lawyers, plus the fact Chinese companies couldn't care less about copyright. I'm new to dedicated astronomy cameras but from the start it's clear to me Zwo is playing a very dirty game here. You're free to support whoever you want but that doesn't make it right.
Glad someone said it. QHY and several other brands are at risk if all they do is clone cameras and scopes.
Yes I really want to do better. Wee need the competition.
I have been in Astrophotography since 2005. I was also ignored or teased about my involvement in Mac. Our house fire in 2013 put our involvement on the back burner. When we stopped the advance was bluetooth. I had to stand by our picture window to use the cameras inside or brave 0 to -10 degrees. When i started to do this again in Jan 2024 i was amazed at what ZWO had brought to market. Until Touptek brings the software up to date I will continue being a ZWO snob. Thanks for your insight..
That is a shame. We are just as good as the next guy. Lol
Someone can do a kickstarter hardware project and knock socks off this duo -- ZWO and QHY, again reason Dylan said -- portability
As you briefly touched on, do you think any of these will ever support Olympus/OM cameras without having to be a coder yourself? Did you make any progress with the Stellarmate + OMD/OM?
Stellarmate works with OM cameras but I myself do not have a setup running them yet. It's been a time thing and I was rather cancer sick for about 3-4 months but getting better now. Maybe I can make it happen and show the OM community how.
I think biggest issue with something outside ASIAir is lack of good software. EKOS - is horrible - horrible UI, I didn't manage to use one. There is no decent live stacking software on Linux. Additionally you need good UI that can be displayed at tablet - and this is also lacking. (ok besides my project 🙂)
I myself work on OpenLiveStacker (it has tourch screen optimized UI) but it mostly does live stacking and plate solving (for lightweight EAA on a go). No mount control integration, PHD2 or polar alignment yet.
I wish Linux was better represented in the astro software community.
I can't agree more about EKOS.
Very interesting Ben there is the Stellarmate but even now that still seems pretty buggy, I do hope there will be more competition in the market as I myself don't run ZWO cameras but Altair ones simply because myself & the company are based in the UK so should any issues arise I can get them dealt with swiftly. Not only that but I've had an astro station on order since July & I were hoping it would be here by now before going to a star party next week but I don't think it will be happening now sadly.
On an other hand, stellarmate is much better now than one year ago, if you haven't use it in a long time and still looking for a solution that doesn't imply locking you up in zwo prison, you should try it
I to have Stellarmate. It's powerful but a lot to figure out. I was actually going to mention it in the video but then it was starting to get too long.
Your explination of the legal issues around asiair is a misunderstanding of how software licenses work, in particular open source "free software" licenses are "copy left" meaning if you modify the source in a production product, you are required to freely distribute the changes to that code completely. In other words, if you use it then you have to disclose it completely, which would give zwo less of a competitive advantage. It has notging to do with paying for or not paying for updates or software... free software is about enforcing free as in "freedom" not free as in gratis. The idea is transparency of the code and freedom for anyone to update, fix, or fork the code for any purpose as long as they release that code to the public.
The asiair is just using the indi servers/drivers and the phd2 integration found on the typical astroberry linux distro. This is the legal rub. They dont disclose the software running on the Pi, so its difficult to judge they are operating in the legal space.
If you're a software engineer or contribute to free software, then these topics are closer to the heart than those who aren't.
Funny how first impressions affect our opinions.
I think it's a bolt statement to say qhy sucks without having tried it. I'm not a qhy user but I'm curious on what it is capable of. If the software is as good a s the asi air, it's pretty much a no brainer and I'm sure there's a way to get you hans on one
Well, I own the QHY Focuser. They ship unsigned driver installers... Software isn't their strength it seems
I am not saying their products suck. I am saying they suck for not trying to bring this to market in 5 years.
Good point. Im not far from Dylan just over the Queensland border. I do have a PoleMaster and the software is terrible. I don't use it anymore because i build an observatory some years ago.
When the PoleMaster first came out it was the best thing there was. Guess it has been elapsed by other software now.
Very true! 👍
Oddly, no one challenges ZWO in a real way. The UI is so simple and easy to learn, and the ASIAIRs are not that expensive. The field is ready for a generic competitor. The Stellarmate Pro is fantastic on paper but let down by its user interface.
You are right.
Green Rue
It's a mystery why QHY won't bring the Star Master to not just the USA market but also Europe?? They're missing out on so much more revenue from all the extra sales?? Furthermore, competition with ZWO will great for customers because it will force them to reduce prices to compete with each other for market share!
Could it be QHY is worried about intellectual property as in it might be too much of a clone of the ASIAIR to not make it through a court challenge? China is much supposedly much more relaxed on such things than other countries.
@@richardhswan8069 That's a great point Richard. China essentially clones everything and cares nothing about intellectual property rights etc so that could well be the reason!
@@richardhswan8069 They are so different now I do not think that would happen.
854 Labadie Freeway
Some camera manufacturers such as Olympus do not market their smaller cameras in the USA because they think they will not sell, such as the E-M10iv. The USA is not the major market place, Asia-Pacific and Europe are bigger. Sad really and probably a bad marketing plan. If you ain't got them, you cannot sell them. Yes, we've got no bananas (old song, post-war banana shortage ;) )
That is such an awesome song too.
There are 1.5 billion people in China. I guess that is enough client potential for QHY and Touptek for their astrocomputers. Also, the ASIAIR software is likely more advanced in terms of the GUI and is a huge competitive advantage. From what I understood, ZWO does not want to allow non-ZWO hardware because of the driver support.
It probably won’t pass FCC testing.
Whats that?
@@TheNarrowbandChannel FCC testing for emissions and RF compliance which can be very expensive especially if there's a WiFi radio involved.
This is probably one of the major reasons but seemingly short sighted
Colleen Station
Eloisa Mountains
Like
Ha ha - thanks! I've been curious about QHY for a while, but now I know - "QHY? Those guys suck." 😆
They really do make great cameras and have made some good strides forward in hardware too. Software is just lacking. I really want them to be better.
Considine Run
Other than Cuiv, you all ignore the Stellarmate Pro. Not sure if thats on purpose or not. The Stellarmate will pretty much run any mix of equipment. It will also run either through a mobile device or laptop/desktop and can be run on a Macbook.
It is larger and pricier but is an all in one controller that can also power your mount and dew heaters etc and has both WIFI and GPS etc
I actually shot some video for the Stellarmate but video was getting to long so u cut it. Another one that is never mentioned is indigo sky by cloudmakers
@@TheNarrowbandChannel Would be interesting to see you review the Stellarmate Pro in the future.
America Inlet
The way you claim ZWO deals with software is just a guess and wrong. It's opensource software and they don't follow the rules of the license. That is clearly wrong and not dealing with it. It's plain and simple wrong. ZWO apologists are just as bad as ZWO. If they published the changes to the software they stole then it would have been fine but they didn't.
Which or how many of these open standards is suing ZWO? If none perhaps there are legal reasons they are allowed too? Or maybe they do not care and neither should we? Forum posts get some people way to worked up and often have no benefit to the industry and are even toxic to it.
@@TheNarrowbandChannel it cost money to sue and these are often community projects. Just because someone breaks a license agreement because they have deeper pockets or they think they can get away with it doesn’t mean it’s right. So it’s also wrong to assume legal reasons rather than just reasons.
@@GregMcCall If all the rage becomes ubiquitous across all astronomers will astronomy be a better place? Will more people want to be a part of it? Will it bring more good will? How is this helping us? What about all the other instances of people improving the open source standards that you or I have never heard off. There must be many of them. Do we get upset about the tree that fell in the woods that we do not know about?
@@TheNarrowbandChannel I don’t know about any rage nor do I think many people care about much more than price. That still doesn’t make it right and still doesn’t justify skipping over a company’s wrong and their profiting over someone else’s software. If they were transparent, you’d have more of a point but they are not. Many (probably most) think it’s zwo innovation when really the indi kstars ekos software, the zwo products using them would not exist. Zwo deserves credit for putting it all in a hardware package and driving that idea in the industry but not the way they did it.
If you go to China, you could buy it.
You can gray market them too. But they won't support you or honor a warranty.
Simping for a Chinese company stealing IP - **GOLD_STAR**
You’re a rude little boy
It's China. The factory probably went to QHY and asked them if they wanted it in purple.
@@OGParzoval The IP is open source software.
Your inability to understand how open source software works is not an argument against it.
Has anyone filed a suit agains them yet? Or taken any form of legal action? If not why are we worried about this? Aren't there better ways to use our energy?
@@TheNarrowbandChannel Not really taking any side on this. But in terms of a lawsuit its unlikely to happen given they are based in China which makes suing them almost impossible. Companies have been sued in the US for violating GPL licensing before though.
@DylanODonnell @TheNarrowbandChannel Fight!😅
Hahaha not I would never want to fight Dylan. I consider him one of my role models in this hobby. Dylan is really so cool! Probably the coolest and chillest geek in this hobby I know.