In the words of my personal invite to test drive a Tesla Model S: Prepare for take off! Great news for me, even though affording one is unlikely…
On a more down to earth but equally exciting note, the same can be said of Victron as today I learned that the VRM app is officially going Open Source – and unlike a Tesla it is free. So to all you software developers out there: Prepare for take off too!
Now Matthijs has released the source code for Android and iOS, maybe you can develop some killer functionality? Here are the links to the source code on GitHub:
For those of you that aren’t familiar with Open-source software (OSS), Wikipedia explains the principals well.
Back to Tesla. You’re probably wondering what the relevance is. A few months ago Matthijs, told me he intended to eventually make the VRM app Open Source and explained his reasons. Today when I received the email confirming the source code release (and my Tesla test drive invite), I was struck by the similar philosophy of of Tesla and his blog about the spirit of the open source movement, to that which Matthijs, CEO of Victron Energy has.
Whilst I have no verbatim quote from Matthijs to give you, I’ll leave you with Elon Musk’s thoughts which have a remarkable resemblance. Albeit about their patents, the intent is the same:
“Technology leadership is not defined by patents, which history has repeatedly shown to be small protection indeed against a determined competitor, but rather by the ability of a company to attract and motivate the world’s most talented engineers. We believe that applying the open source philosophy to our patents will strengthen rather than diminish Tesla’s position in this regard.”
In that vein we wish all you talented engineers out there, every success. Maybe you’ll earn enough to buy a Tesla. If you do, don’t forget who told you about this. 😉
Have a great weekend.
