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[Xbox-Scene]

Open Kinect Project: 2000USD Bounty for Open-Source Kinect Drivers Posted by XanTium | November 5 00:24 EST | News Category: Xbox360

Adafruit Industries - a NYC based company that sells kits and parts for original, open source hardware electronics projects - is offering a 2000 USD cash prize for whoever is first to release an open-source PC driver for the Kinect: Hi from team Adafruit, we’re going to do our first ever “X prize” type project. Hack the Kinect for Xbox 360 and claim the $2,000 bounty! What do we (all) want? Open source drivers for this cool USB device, the drivers and/or application can run on any operating system – but completely documented and under an open source license. To demonstrate the driver you must also write an application with one “window” showing video (640 x 480) and one window showing depth. Upload all of this to GitHub. How get the bounty ($2,000 USD) Anyone around the world can work on this, including Microsoft Upload your code, examples and documentation to GitHub. First person / group to get RGB out with distance values being used wins, you’re smart – you know what would be useful for the community out there. All the code needs to be open source and/or public domain. Email us a link to the repository, we and some “other” Kinect for Xbox 360 hackers will check it out – if it’s good to go, you’ll get the $2,000 bounty! CNet already has a response from Microsoft and they love the idea... Oh, wait, no... Actually: “Microsoft does not condone the modification of its products,” a company spokesperson told CNET. “With Kinect, Microsoft built in numerous hardware and software safeguards designed to reduce the chances of product tampering. Microsoft will continue to make advances in these types of safeguards and work closely with law enforcement and product safety groups to keep Kinect tamper-resistant.” Official Site: adafruit.com

[Pseudo99]

M$, you're making a PROFIT off of hardware from day 1. Stop being arrogant about your product. If people buy it, you make money. If people use it for uses other than intended, you make MORE money. How is this a bad thing?

[amak1131]

Making drivers doesn't modify the hardware... so M$ really has nothing they can use for any possible case.

[bengrimsy]

/me dreams of a day when open source software/hardware makes up the majority of products we use instead of the minority, but doesn't know if corporate greed will ever let that happen.

wtf m$..... it's not hard to read between to see the lines here. There is rumors of m$ releasing devices like this for PC in the not too distant future..... that is why they wont let this happen. We will have to buy two products instead of one. It's sad because it can easily be used on either platform, or any platform for that matter, but that would be too convenient for the consumers.

(edit) PS....I wish i had $2000 to give, because i would happily do so. Good luck people!

This post has been edited by bengrimsy: Nov 5 2010, 05:53 AM

[colt45joe]

if drivers were made for the pc, and some neat things could be done with it ...then i would buy a kinect.

[bengrimsy]

QUOTE(amak1131 @ Nov 4 2010, 10:45 PM)

Making drivers doesn't modify the hardware... so M$ really has nothing they can use for any possible case.

Drivers use their product in a way it wasnt intended for and they put in security measures to stop it. Yeah these drivers will not be legal, and m$ will have a case. We may have to even do a hardware mod to pull this off.

[majinsoftware]

Dont see MS being to happy with this since they are planning to release a kinnect sort of device next year to control PC's.

But good luck to every one who attempts it, Id defantly buy a kinnect if there were open source drivers since theres a project iv been wanting to work on that requires such a device.

[Aldanga]

QUOTE(bengrimsy @ Nov 5 2010, 12:05 AM)

Drivers use their product in a way it wasnt intended for and they put in security measures to stop it. Yeah these drivers will not be legal, and m$ will have a case. We may have to even do a hardware mod to pull this off.

I cannot see how writing independent drivers for a piece of hardware in order that it might communicate with another piece of hardware does, in any way, break the law. One is not modifying any code Microsoft sets forth, but rather starting from scratch. Preventing such things would be in violation of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.

[amak1131]

QUOTE(Aldanga @ Nov 4 2010, 10:50 PM)

I cannot see how writing independent drivers for a piece of hardware in order that it might communicate with another piece of hardware does, in any way, break the law. One is not modifying any code Microsoft sets forth, but rather starting from scratch. Preventing such things would be in violation of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.

Dunno about the Amendment part, but the rest seems right. No copyrighted code is being used, the product itself is not being touched. All it would do is maybe void your warranty at most.

[kingdt]

QUOTE(Aldanga @ Nov 5 2010, 06:50 AM)

Preventing such things would be in violation of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.

We don't all live in America so not sure if that matters. If it did then i'd buy all the weed i could coz it's legal in Amsterdam  

[RoCkP]

2 grand lol what a joke,im sure thats gonna really get people working round the clock.will prob just be more incentive for individuals already working to accomplish this.i dont see people hearing about 2 measly grand and devoting all their time to  get the money.

[Bad_Ad]

You have no legal case against someone writing drivers to work with a USB device.

Its designed to be connected via USB, someone writing drivers for it is just business as usual.

If you didnt want people to connect it to their PC, dont use USB.

Also, this is a prime case of "ive bought it, i can do what I want". I believe this about consoles, but they pull the "copyright infringement" case, which I can understand and they vaguely have a point.

In this case tho, you bought the hardware, any modification doesnt cause you to play games for free etc, so theres clearly no case.

This post has been edited by Bad_Ad: Nov 5 2010, 10:59 AM

[swaneejuggalo]

This possibility actually makes me somewhat excited for the kinect and if it happens I will definitely get one. It would be nice to have some sort of kinect homebrew to look forward too lol

Why is 2grand a joke? I'm pretty sure a lot of people would like a extra 2K and if they decide to put more spare time forward to get it than so be it. Considering all the things coders in the scene do for nothing I think 2K would be welcomed.

[bmwbmwbmw]

Are people so dense that they don't recognize standard legalese? The guy's obviously a talking head spouting off about something he's completely clueless about. All he's paid to do is protect MS's interests, whether he knows what he's doing or not is an entirely different matter. He probably doesn't even know what a driver is.

[Bad_Ad]

QUOTE(bmwbmwbmw @ Nov 5 2010, 12:07 PM)

Are people so dense that they don't recognize standard legalese? The guy's obviously a talking head spouting off about something he's completely clueless about. All he's paid to do is protect MS's interests, whether he knows what he's doing or not is an entirely different matter. He probably doesn't even know what a driver is.

Nope, completely realise what it is.

However, this is a forum which is for discussion.