Open Source ARC Platform

There’s an inherent tension here: for this to really take off, Synthiam ARC should be open source - but I also recognize the investment that has gone into building these tools, and the creator deserves to be compensated for that work.

I sincerely believe this is the future of how robotics software should be built. However, the current restrictions are holding it back from wider adoption. DJ Sures knows far more about robotics than I do, but the core issue is that the robotics world needs a common language and a common platform to truly take off. Without that, we risk repeating the early days of mobile phones, where every vendor tried to lock users into their own walled garden.

A better path forward would be to open the core ARC platform (the shared operating system for Robot Skills, EZB controllers, and PC-connected devices) while monetizing through an app store model: take a percentage of each paid robot skill or app sold. That would let ARC become the common operating system the whole robotics ecosystem can build on.

(Clarification: it’s not clear whether I’m referring specifically to EZB firmware or the PC-side ARC application - the point applies to the platform and its plugin/Robot Skill ecosystem either way.)