uhhh...let me guess.

julie's crestron guy closed up shop?

I was going to suggest that earlier... :)

Perhaps he refused to service the crappy TV she bought online.

OT

Julie..... given all the dealer contacts here and the industry you're, supposedly, part of.... did you really buy a set from some random online slasher and not support our industry?
I certainly hope that isn't true.
That would be sort of sad.

If i just want to put a cheap TV somewhere and i find it for less on Amazon than the disty has it for.. guess where im going to buy it from..

I express an opinion and the best you can offer is a completely useless response?


Why not, instead of being dismissive of others, offer YOUR opinion to the question?

mining ci's as a resource to write (paid) articles should be reciprocated in some fashion. profit from us, support us.

You know, I'm on the fence with this one...

On the one hand, we always provide the customer with a copy of the un-compiled CSP code, right along with the CAD's, the scope of work, the operations manual, and the manufacturer manuals; it's in our contract as our "deliverables package".

On the other hand, all of our proprietary programming framework modules (Room, source, and UI modules) and any device drivers we write for devices not in the I2P program are encrypted. As others have stated, it's simply referenced inside of the un-encrypted customer file. This allows us to retain the crap that took me hundreds of non-billable hours and many systems to get right for ourselves, yet give the customer the flexibility to swap a Panasonic plasma for a Pioneer plasma, or add a Blu-ray in the event that we part ways...

As far as GUI's go, I don't really care about the .VTP file. All of our recent graphics have been a modified Destiny template, which is available to all Crestron dealers, or custom Fireworks/Photoshop jobs. The custom jobs require a fair bit of time, but the editable form of those files is Fireworks PNG, or .PSD rather than the .PNG that is in the VTpro project. Once you save the project, the graphics lose all references to the original program.

I'm definitely scheduling an appointment with my attorney to verify that we are within our rights, and what verbage should be added to the contract to specifically state that there is a difference between our "Programming framework" and "Connecting the dots"

To sound like a broken record, I am all for consumer fairness and transparency. We're not in the business of screwing people over. We have never had a problem with getting fired by clients and putting them in that awkward situation. If we were placed in that position and we had given our due diligence I for one would might just concede the code to to get them out of my hair. I'm not one to restrict free enterprise.

This seems to be happening all the time recently. Due to some of the comments in this post, it seems to me like poor business practices are diluting the value of Crestron, hurting the _professional_ dealer base, and skewing customers towards Control 4 which is bad ;). Chalk it up to averages, it happens in any industry.

I like Iron Mountain's idea, (ironically, they're a client and I was talking my contact when I originally read that) and would be willing to open lines of communication with Iron Mountain Digital for you, Julie, if you want to talk to them. I'm sure they have plenty of insight that can be offered to the topic. Gonna have to give em' a call anyway...

Mike

from me off ebay? i now have 3 fujitsu's to unload or they get donated to a school


but seriously....remember the old "Buy American" campaigns ..it's basically the same thing ... if are part of our industry you should be supporting our industry. If not you are just shooting yourself in the foot.
I certainly will always pay the extra few bucks to support one of my disties then support some dotcom that my business doesn't rely on or function from.

That she did, even though she regretted it very soon after. There is a blog about it on CEPro and on her site.

I swear.. if i had a way to get those Fujitsu's here without breaking a sweat i would do it :).

I dont mind paying a few extra bucks to the distys but when its a few hundred.. im logging into my amazon account. If im paying a few hundred more at the disty.. the client is paying more than that. Then you get the price shoppers wondering why its $1000 more from me than Amazon. Why should a CI have to fight this battle with a client? Its not our fault.

If the manufacturers cant control their price, the CI disty shouldnt be carrying the garbage and i shouldnt have to feel guilty or threatened when its on amazon for a few hundred dollars less. I miss Fujitsu.

I have a unique idea. How about if Crestron, AMX, Elan, others let us store files on their server, then made it available to the consumer only if the first dealer was ok with it or just out of the picture; then a rep would give it to the new dealer. Something along those lines.

So Julie .......How Many of "Chicago Based Now Closed Door Baumiester Customers" are never going to get their Crestron Code?

That sounds like an excellent idea, ..until your client chooses a competitor and all of your code is released to them even if you didn't do anything wrong.

Julie,

OK, I guess I blurred these two paragraphs together.

****************************************************************
Copyright. All title and copyrights in and to the Software (including, without limitation, any images, photographs, animations, video, audio, music, text, and "applets" incorporated into the Software), the accompanying media and printed materials, and any copies of the Software are owned by Crestron or its suppliers. The Software is protected by copyright laws and international treaty provisions. Therefore, you must treat the Software like any other copyrighted material, subject to the provisions of this Agreement.

Submissions. Should you decide to transmit to Crestron’s website by any means or by any media any materials or other information (including, without limitation, ideas, concepts or techniques for new or improved services and products), whether as information, feedback, data, questions, comments, suggestions or the like, you agree such submissions are unrestricted and shall be deemed non-confidential and you automatically grant Crestron and its assigns a non-exclusive, royalty-free, worldwide, perpetual, irrevocable license, with the right to sublicense, to use, copy, transmit, distribute, create derivative works of, display and perform the same.
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What I find interesting is that I used to feel that no one could have any of MY code. As I have gotten better and better, often because of others sharing, I am much less concerned with someone else having anything I have done. So I will freely share with others. I even write help files to remind myself how things work. If what I have done can help the next person to see it great. I have had to pull teeth and give blood to get code that was so bad it was unusable. Conversely I have been freely given code that taught me a lot. This industry suffers from to many C- programmers and not enough A+ ones.

Julie, did you know you were shaking up a hornets nest and stuffing it in your mailbox when you started this thread?

Robert