I think you mean the sysex format, correct?kazakore wrote:and by extension the JSON format configuration for the latest firmware releases
JSON is self documenting. The JSON patch format used is well designed and very readable. I've had no problems directly reading and writing it to create my own layouts. Documenting it is not really necessary.
Sysex is a bit different, it would be good to have it documented. Various people have reverse engineered it and there are docs out there somewhere. However, I think you're right that the layout of stuff did change a bit in each firmware release. This makes it tricky to maintain. As you point out, releasing the editor code would sort of be a way of documenting the sysex for each revision as well. Some people do have access to that code. I don't need it myself for my own editor work, but maybe others do.
I've noted that I was pining for the firmware code to be released. The argument against that was that the development tools for the processor were expensive, over $1000 (it's mentioned around here somewhere). That changed though a while back as the chip maker released a very inexpensive evaluation board kit that comes with the compiler, about $99. A couple years ago I would have jumped into that but these days I have other stuff I am doing and I am happy with my own low level stuff that pulls effective 10 bit resolution off the sliders and drives 14 bit controllers, and supports multitouch sliders. If I had the firmware I'd be able to fix the aftertouch sensitivity problems without reducing its resolution. But of course due to the flash size constraints of the hardware very likely some features would have to go away. Although I advocated for this previously, at this point I'm unlikely to do firmware improvements and I'm probably there's only one or two people total able to mess with it on this level, so there's probably no point to them releasing it really.