xTIMEcomposer Community vs Enterprise

[pstnotpd]

As XCore is announced as the support site for the Community edition I'll post the questions here.

In this announcement it is stated that the Community edition will essentially be the Enterprise edition without direct XMOS support.

However, it also states

The annual subscription, multi-site license will also provide an upgrade path that integrates an ARM® compiler and debugger development flow to support the new multicore xCORE-XA™ products

Does this mean ARM development for the xCORE-XA will be on the Enterprise version only?

Also, is open sourcing XC considered? It does not appear in the source download section as far as I can tell.

[Folknology]

I too would like to better understand the implications of these license/edition changes

regards
Al

[Redeye]

Yes, I'd like a bit more information on this too.

Does this mean that there's no support for non subscribers from now on? Even when the problem is a bug in the tools or a lack of documentation (which have been the vast majority of my support tickets)?

[TjBordelon]

This is worrysome. The tools have been extremely buggy, and it would benefit XMOS to at least allow a way for "vetted" developers to provide input, even if they aren't paying $5k/yr.

I think this is an attempt to eliminate the hobbyists from the "real devs", however I'm going to be one of many unjustly filtered out. As a startup, If I had to pay $5k for every tool I own, I'd be out of business. (I have 3 chips on my design, each with their own dev environment!)

I always believe it to be a mistake when processor companies charge for dev tools. This isn't where they should be making their money-- every developer multiplies profit later on when their product comes out.

For me, this is the XMOS story: WOW- the fastest chips I've seen! (G4). Free tools! Seems like a win. 3 months later: Tools are terribly buggy, the G4 is old and the new chips are not as powerful. And by the way, we now cost $5k/yr, or more than TI and Analog devices.

(Note that even though "community edition" is free, I would have given up had it not been for the ticket system and getting support on issues in the debugger. So without that, I don't think their tools are really usable in their current state without support)

So this story is getting pretty sour in my opinion. While other vendors are lowering their tool prices (with tools that work very well) and giving us more cores/faster clocks, XMOS seems to be doing the opposite.

BOO!

[TjBordelon]

One more additional point. I don't know exactly where the marketeers are trying to take us, but I'm personally nervous.

The requirement that the IDE phones home before an install seems to be an insight into their mindset: If the plan in the future is to transition to 100% pay-per-year tools, the usual strategy of archiving the toolchain with the product will not be possible. I can imagine a day many years from now when I try to install version 12 and I can't because the validation server says "Sorry, not supported-- buy the new 5k/yr version!"

I'm sure the word on the street here is "Don't worry, the community edition is the answer", but there are enough worrysome trends here that I am now on the fence about whether or not to port my stuff to head off trouble. A board rev is coming up, and all my stuff is in C. Hummmm...

[pstnotpd]

I think this is an attempt to eliminate the hobbyists from the "real devs", however I'm going to be one of many unjustly filtered out.

If this is the case I'm going to be eliminated as I'm a pure hobbyist in this field primarily interested in parallel processing.

[TjBordelon]

If this is the case I'm going to be eliminated as I'm a pure hobbyist in this field primarily interested in parallel processing.

Well, to be accurate when I say "filtered out", I mean that they are probably trying to focus tech support on those customers they feel are going to turn them a profit.

I think my suggestions would be:

- Provide a separate bug report ticket system that is "one way" response optional. BUT.. respond to legitimate bugs.

- Recognize legitimate users even if they don't pay $5k/yr, and give them ticket access. If someone is finding bugs and helping you isolate them in test cases, don't charge them for the privilege.

- Price yourself competitively. I don't know if their subscription model is based on the XILINX IP or others but it seems way out of range from the expected. I always considered my Blackfin tool chain ($6k for the JTAG and a perpetual license with video codec IP included) to be crazy, but now XMOS takes that title.

- Remain competitive and stay in your niche. I think they're chasing the sales figures other companies are achieveing with lower power micros. Unfortunately the very thing that allowed them to get funding and start this show is being abandoned! They are/were the only company offering low cost deterministic parallel processing that could replace FPGAs. Their new trend towards fewer cores and trying to support things like USB and microcontroller features misses the entire point they were founded on. They are now vectoring onto a course that will make them irrelevant.. lost in a sea of superior competition.

I hope they change course!

[Bianco]

I want to express my concerns too for reasons stated by others.

[sethu_jangala]

Hello All,

I think the following questions will answer all your concerns:

1. Does this mean ARM development for the xCORE-XA will be on the Enterprise version only?
Ans: No, the xCORE-XA will be supported by both the community and the enterprise version of the tools.

2. Is there any plan in the future is to transition to 100% pay-per-year tools.
Ans: No. We are a silicon company and we want as many people as possible to have access to our technology. The community version of the tool will therefore continue to be available to all the community users for free of charge.

3. Does this mean that there's no support for non subscribers from now on? Even when the problem is a bug in the tools or a lack of documentation (which have been the vast majority of my support tickets)?
Ans: The support system at xmos.com is still the place to report a bug in XMOS software, a hardware fault or a problem with documentation. We have created a new queue in the existing RT system for bug reporting, in which users can post the bugs which are identified by them. The service for Enterprise users is designed for commercial organizations which are increasingly asking XMOS to help with spotting and fixing bugs in their own (that is, the customer’s) code.

4. What functionality is the Community users going to lose compared to Enterprise users?
Ans: Community tools users will lose nothing in terms of functionality. In fact, the Community tools will often be ahead of the Enterprise version in terms of functionality, since we will only release Enterprise tools when they are absolutely stable and tested: the Community tools will be where we first introduce new features and functions.

Sethu.

[andygothard]

If this is the case I'm going to be eliminated as I'm a pure hobbyist in this field primarily interested in parallel processing.

Well, to be accurate when I say "filtered out", I mean that they are probably trying to focus tech support on those customers they feel are going to turn them a profit.

I think my suggestions would be:

- Provide a separate bug report ticket system that is "one way" response optional. BUT.. respond to legitimate bugs.

- Recognize legitimate users even if they don't pay $5k/yr, and give them ticket access. If someone is finding bugs and helping you isolate them in test cases, don't charge them for the privilege.

I hope they change course!

Sorry this hasn't been made clear. There is, and will continue to be, a separate bug report queue (and not just one-way). As now, you'll have to login to the website to access it, but that's the height of the hurdle.
I'll post an announcement topic on this over the next 24 hrs. Sorry it hasn't come sooner - getting the Tools release done, the work with xCORE-XA and all the startKIT stuff has taken over a bit from keeping the community up to date.