Our experience with the SDR-1000 software has been very illuminating. As the Linux software has developed, and the possibility of moving away from Windows has progressed, a surprising number of technically super-competent hams have started coming out of the woodwork to pound on the code. The unifying theme has been an aversion to Microsoft and Windows. The fact that so much ham software is joined at the hip to Redmond seems to have been a real impediment to quite a few folks otherwise capable of making significant contributions.
Also, speaking only for myself, I can say that the public contentiousness surrounding the HF email issue is a real negative. Given a choice as to what projects to work on, the level of griping counts heavily in ranking the order of importance. At this point the whole area has a kind of radioactive glow that might well scare away anybody who's concerned with getting some real work done in preference to dealing with political issues. I wasn't around at the time, but it's easy to imagine this kind of thing at work in the history of Spread Spectrum as well. In any case, the notion that the "open source developers" are a distinct group from the "closed source developers" is laughable. They're the same people. And, I have to say, the people who work both sides of that fence tend to be a good bit more punctilious about originality, fairness, and more specific IP issues, than those who pursue their work behind closed doors. 73 Frank AB2KT --- In digitalradio@yahoogroups.com, "Joel Kolstad" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > --- In digitalradio@yahoogroups.com, "Rick Williams" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > wrote: > > And why is that? Is the open source community just not as > competent as > > a private developer such as SCS? > > I think they're potentially as competent, but they're approaching a > technically difficult problem and the number of people who have the > required technical background to contribute are pretty few and far > between. > > Still, if you take Linux as an example, many parts of it were > technically difficult and I've been amazed just how successful it's > been. The key seems to be attracting a "critical mass" of > developers, and amateur radio perhaps doesn't have that right now in > many niche areas (high speed digital modes being a good example -- > remember the TAPR spread spectrum project that slowly died due to a > lack of people having time to contribute?)... The K3UK DIGITAL MODES SPOTTING CLUSTER AT telnet://208.15.25.196/ Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/digitalradio/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
