Quo Vadis rusefi?
Posted: Mon May 08, 2017 4:03 pm
Or, in 1980s CEO speak: "What is our current mission statement?"
It seems we have moved past the original idea of providing control for experimental and crackpot engines.
One goal that seems reasonable is to see rusefi spread as far as it can. Spreading open-source goodness across the planet is a worthy goal.
I'm asking this loaded question because we all try to help improve the product constantly. Usually we just think of features we would like to see and assume that others may like these features as well. And then our core developers decide if this is something they want to tackle right away, definitely later, maybe later, maybe not at all, but if an independent developer wants to take a shot at it, do it.
Most of us can probably think of so many possible features to keep a 10 person team of soft- and hardware developers each busy for a few years. But that's not realistic and it would likely lead to a super-bloated product that misses the mark.
In order to better evaluate what features are important, we need to figure out where we want to go.
One key question seems to be: What is/are the target market(s)?
a few things we should likely dismiss right out of hand are:
- Current luxury or high performance vehicles with very steep price-tags
- Super-oddball types of engines like hit-and-miss engines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hit-and-miss_engine, turbines and the likes
- Highly safety-critical applications like helicopter engines/turbines, ocean-going vessels
Some probably more realistic markets to target:
- Conversions of most sizes carburetor engines, be it in a lawnmower, or an old V12 from the 60s.
- Low(ish)-budget race cars
- At least in the US: Pre-OBDII injected car engines that are not subject to emissions
- Fun projects involving engines
What other worthwhile targets are out there? What should be the primary focus,
It seems we have moved past the original idea of providing control for experimental and crackpot engines.
One goal that seems reasonable is to see rusefi spread as far as it can. Spreading open-source goodness across the planet is a worthy goal.
I'm asking this loaded question because we all try to help improve the product constantly. Usually we just think of features we would like to see and assume that others may like these features as well. And then our core developers decide if this is something they want to tackle right away, definitely later, maybe later, maybe not at all, but if an independent developer wants to take a shot at it, do it.
Most of us can probably think of so many possible features to keep a 10 person team of soft- and hardware developers each busy for a few years. But that's not realistic and it would likely lead to a super-bloated product that misses the mark.
In order to better evaluate what features are important, we need to figure out where we want to go.
One key question seems to be: What is/are the target market(s)?
a few things we should likely dismiss right out of hand are:
- Current luxury or high performance vehicles with very steep price-tags
- Super-oddball types of engines like hit-and-miss engines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hit-and-miss_engine, turbines and the likes
- Highly safety-critical applications like helicopter engines/turbines, ocean-going vessels
Some probably more realistic markets to target:
- Conversions of most sizes carburetor engines, be it in a lawnmower, or an old V12 from the 60s.
- Low(ish)-budget race cars
- At least in the US: Pre-OBDII injected car engines that are not subject to emissions
- Fun projects involving engines
What other worthwhile targets are out there? What should be the primary focus,