EXACTLY!
73
Bob, K4TAX
On 7/1/2019 4:35 PM, Don Wilhelm wrote:
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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