Reply with QuoteWe are the developer of the EZ-Trol software and yes, it is for sale. Cost is $250.
EZ-Trol? EMC2?
I spoke with a rep. from Smithy and EZ-Trol is modified EMC2. It looks interesting to me.
Does anyone have any experience with it? I asked if it was available for purchase, but she said it was not. I liked the conversational aspects of it and the larger DRO's. It looks like the best of Mach and EMC2. We need to find a way to get a GNU arrangement. She mentioned it was EMC2 with QT4 library calls. Does that mean something to you? It went over my head.
Mike
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EZ-Trol EMC
We are the developer of the EZ-Trol software and yes, it is for sale. Cost is $250.
So what is the name of your company?
Conversational CAM for EMC
We don't have the download on our website yet, but it should be ready in a week. Until then, you can contact Bob Schuppel at Weber Systems (www.webersys.com) 888-349-4586. If you've taken a look at the videos on Smithy's site (www.smithycnc.com), Bob is describing some of the features.
Anyone else unable to access those Smithy videos ? Maybe my machine needs a java update or less aggressive pop-up blocking.
Anyone who says "It only goes together one way" has no imagination.
I could not get them to work either !
They play on my Mac, but the server is so slow that they keep stopping. I'm using Firefox and I have a Flash plug-in.
Alan
Looks like Smithy has fixed some of the code on their site.
I can access the videos now but, yes, close to unwatchable due to slow streaming.
Anyone who says "It only goes together one way" has no imagination.
If that is true, then it must abide by the GNU GPL that EMC2 is distributed under.Originally Posted by fusion_crank
The conversational CAM portion of EZ-Trol is most likely not subject to the GPL if that's where you're going. However I am not a lawyer or even playing one on television.
Anyone who says "It only goes together one way" has no imagination.
Just wait until the entire video is buffered before pressing play. The slider bar along the bottom of the video will "fill in" (turn from a dark green color to an almost black-green color) as it buffers the stream.
The EZ-Trol program looks pretty, but I didn't see anything there worth spending money on. The big DRO's and offset readouts are easy to do under EMC/AXIS using pyVCP and I can only see using the milling page occasionally to quickly modify existing pieces otherwise you'd be better off creating those features using your CAM package.
- Dean
On the flip side of that coin, I would pay small amounts of money for plug-ins or modules that provided a benifit to me. the right conversational set-up would replace alot of simpler cad and cam work on entire parts if layered and scripted right?
Absolutely true! EZ-trol must abide by the GNU GPL/LGPL that the relevant EMC2 code is copyrighted under. The modifications spoken of to the EMC2 code are all in configuration so no compiled code is affected. I'd guess that Smithy would have no issues with those configurations becoming public.
EZ-Trol is written using the QT graphical user interface software library. Smithy is in process of releasing it's own QT-4 to EMC2 library under the LGPL and their part of the EZ-Trol GUI as GPL. The EMC2 board is considering the inclusion of that code in future released versions.
However, there was something more restrictive implied in the quoted response and we should note that there are permitted ways to make proprietary code work with GPL/LGPL open source systems and still remain closed. These are well documented and many software systems use them but the EMC2 community works very hard to ensure that users of our software have as much access to the source code of released systems as they can.
I know there are ways to make closed software work with GLP/LGPL systems, and there are many examples. However, I also have first hand experience with companies playing a little "fast and loose" with GPL code to sell it as their own "closed source" application. Just makes me nervous whenever I see "it's a modified version of (insert GPL software here)" followed by "for the low, low price of ..." and the implied "source code not included."
