Bill,
That is quite generous of you, and all those who provide public domain code.
Each of those software packages you mention run on a computer, and are a
complete package within itself. That is different than a situation
where firmware and software are tightly integrated.
This being the Elecraft reflector, (and I being a former of the Elecraft
support team) can say that support of the Elecraft gear would be a real
mess if the firmware were made either public domain or open source where
customers could alter the code.
Because the hardware function and firmware function are tightly
integrated, it is difficult to determine whether there is a hardware or
firmware failure.
If the code were to be open source or public domain, the first response
of the support team would have to be "download and install the official
firmware and try again. Support for non-Elecraft written code would be
a very costly venture for Elecraft.
73,
Don W3FPR
On 7/1/2019 5:13 PM, Bill Frantz wrote:
I must strongly disagree with Bob. Before I retired, most of my career
was spent writing code. This code became the property of my employer,
and when they went bankrupt, I could not access it, support it, or use
it. I never want to be in that situation again.
I will write open source code, but prefer to write public domain code.
My reward comes when people use my code for their own purposes.
I will also point out that much of the code that supports the Internet
is open source. For example: the Firefox browser, the clang and gcc
compilers, the apache web server, the openssl encrypted transport layer
suite, and the code that does basic Internet routing. The Linux OS is
open source. In amateur radio, wsjt-x, cocoaModem, and N1MM are open
source.
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