Yeah, i’ve commented on atleast one. I get why people want it, i also get why Elektron would be dragging their feet.
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I’ve lost count of the number of posts in the Request threads. Nobody can even tell if anyone at Elektron has ever read it.
I meant each of people interested sending email at feature-request@elektron.se.
At least one claiming this could give it a try if they would publish Sysex info.
Why?
Things like
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At least for rytm you may use my sdk to write one. I’d be pleased if it is used for that kind of project.
I don’t have interest and time to do a frontend and write that kind of software but I’d contribute and give support to the person who’d be interested in doing that.
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I heard a lot of this kind of reasoning about 20 years ago, right before Web 2.0 started taking off. Then, all of a sudden, people with that mindset would miss out on all the cool stuff other people invented for free around those products that had an open API, which could boost those products’ value enormously.
BTW, Elektron has enough experience in building the APIs for their devices, so I’d assume the current APIs are mostly stable (e.g. the original AR came out 10 years ago), and adding small features (like new models or parameters) is not a big deal for developers to keep up with. But if every small change requires reverse engineering that shit again, this becomes a pain in the ass. You shift the burden of keeping up entirely to those people who put in the effort to add value to your product. That does not sound like a good idea to me.
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Yes, clearly the lesson of Web 2.0 is that open APIs win and everyone who built a walled, proprietary platform swiftly went out of business and are not now the most valuable companies in the world 
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As long it is mentioned as unofficial, i don’t see why people would ask anything to Elektron. It is unofficial, you take the risk, that’s it.
Jailbreak forced Apple to implement a lot of features they would never even thought about. Point is: you are not interested AND still you wanna bring arguments to not develop something that is needed by many customers. As usual, i’m eager to hear about constructive proposals to bring life to a tool some people need/want, which is the main point of this thread.
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That cool! I say, whole heartedly, go you! You can get quite far reading a sequence of sysex dumps in Synalize It! changing just one property each time. Nothing stopping you and the sky is literally the limit!
But the moment someone starts asking anything of other people (to write code, to document a format, to support a third party tool, to sign a petition) if they didn’t consider the entirety of the potential costs of that ask, they’d kind of be being an entitled jerk, right? It’s not cool to ask favors when you don’t yourself know the costs, you know?
So it’s worth keeping an open mind about the downsides, too. Not as “arguments to not develop something”, but as a way of making sure everyone knows exactly what they’re asking for so no one accidentally looks like a ill-informed freeloader.
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I’m not bringing arguments to not develop, just trying to instill a sense of realism. Nothing I say is going stop anyone doing anything. I just happen to think it’s unlikely that Elektron will see any value in helping these things along. OTOH the digi boxes got song mode (which it was long claimed would never happen), and Deluge went open source, so what do I know.
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In threads which are addressing demands similar to this I encounter a lot of educated assumptions about why sharing/maintaining docs or just sharing docs in an unsupported form makes sense or doesn’t.
What I’d really fancy is a defining statement from the relevant Elektron dev team to say either we’ll consider it or we’re never going to consider this. I’m ok with both answers but it would clear the feeling of “maybe they’ll share the docs” situation.
My two cents on this is,
I think Elektron would benefit from flourishing 3rd party development but without knowing precise company state and internals it’s impossible to know for sure.
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Likewise, here’s the pattern and project management software I use, which is quite dear to me but not exactly user-friendly:
Field Notes makes a nice graph-ruled book that works well for electronic music management.
So does my current favorite notebook maker, HOBONICHI.
They just came out with this great alternative rule that I’m enjoying:
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Absolutely. Because there are valid cases where it would make sense as well as valid cases where it wouldn’t. As you note, only Elektron can know for sure, and I hope they respond to you with guidance.
But failing that, and lacking any greater understanding of the business, we have to keep an open mind regarding both the “makes sense” and the “does not make sense” scenarios. And, if possible, not read malevolent intent into either.
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this is the way
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Wait… you guys are playing the same song again???
I erase and write/program and hour or two of new songs for each performance.
Why the hell would I repeat myself, people already heard last months ideas… let’s move on.
Besides I’ve probably swapped out or sold the drum machines and synths I had plugged into my OT.
Writing from scratch is total freedom!
Don’t be lazy! 
What do they have to gain by making such a defining statement? It only makes the future less flexible for them. I think that it is reasonable to expect that until the day when they announce open developer tools, that we can expect them to continue exactly as they have always done, keeping things closed and proprietary. As a huge open source fan, this is not ideal for me, I would adore an open SDK. But I think it has been very clear what Elektron’s stance is on who can develop firmware for their products.
If you’re hinting at Apple: their public APIs are the excellent and well-documented SDKs for MacOS, iOS, iPad OS.
These are hard to answer for mostly even the company founders or CEOs.
As a person who had relatively enough experience working in and interacting with software companies of different sizes and with different departments of them, “What do we gain?” or “What do we loose?” are usually questions which give birth to discourse internally also. Long discussions happen which does not make everybody happy in the end.
I can empirically say that the decision makers are not usually right with the answers either.
Because these are very complex matters and it involves taking calculated risks and relies on a cocktail of assumption and previous experience if it exists.
No company has 100% control over their success and usually great deal of that is not planned but happen as happy accidents. (Not talking about gigantic enterprises or conglomerates which have scaled into a huge operation to increase precision on these calculations.)
Basing my thoughts on this, I think the benefit is somewhat indirect.
If you take actions which enables more creative individuals with passion to use your products alternatively and make it easier for them to make creative tools for themselves and the community the ecosystem around your product will grow in time with your “little” investment.
When the ecosystem grows, it will become a direct selling point for your product. You’ll get that relatively for free because passionate people will grow the ecosystem by their own will.
SDKs, low level libraries, or MaxMSP interfaces might not seem very appealing and also niche for the major part of the community but eventually people will make tools using these building blocks which would appeal to a wider audience. Then people will talk about it and probably a few of those tools will become indispensible and set new standards about how we approach these machines.
I believe this would benefit Elektron greatly and make it more special.
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Just about the “defining statement”. Yeah not something solid which I can think of now. Some part of the community would gain a lot though. I have the belief that it would benefit them indirectly.
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Plus you can hire these people based their already proven track record with your product, and integrate their invention into your product portfolio.
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