A lot of people, from time to time, express concern about open source. There is no reason to express such concerns and the record that _already exists_ proves it.
Compare, for instance, the PowerSDR console to, say, MixW. MixW is a nice piece of software I use every single day, just like PowerSDR. It has pretty nice terms and conditions. Pay your 50 dollars once and you get updates for free "forever" so far as I know. There's been two major revisions in the two years I have had it. However, PowerSDR has seen major upgrades much more often. More like two per month if you wish it so. It supports, so far as I know, all kind of software defined radio products (not just FlexRadio products) and presumably could do so in the future. The difference between the MixW I first bought and the product today, I'd have to rate as "slight." PowerSDR console is, by contrast, night and day different. I forget how far back you got the "operate without the radio" mode, but you can fetch back versions and see for yourself if you don't own an SDR for some ways. If you have one, well, you can go back farther still. Truly amazing. W0VB reports that if you operate later versions against his famous "moonbounce" session that he saved, you can actually find clear signals the early versions of PowerSDR couldn't "hear." We've come a long way from the beginning. Moreover, if work stopped tomorrow, I would be well-satisfied. The 1.8.0 version (I haven't even bothered to upgrade to 1.10.x) is clearly years ahead of what I could get in a conventional radio both in terms of receiver quality, options, and operational advantages. If I keep the SDR 1000, I may well run 1.8 indefinitely because it would be an easy way to keep it and the Flex 5000 separate on the same computer. So, what would happen if the key volunteers wandered away? Realistically, there would be a halt in DSP-related improvements for a while, that expertise (especially of the sort we have now) is hard to replace, but eventually someone would pick up the slack. Improvements to the _interface_, however, which is where I would be most interested these days, would continue without ceasing. This isn't a matter for theory in the end, we have an actual track record to look at. In my judgement, we're long past the point where the Open Source model downsides can do us any harm and the upsides are there for the enjoying. Larry Wo0Z _______________________________________________ FlexRadio mailing list FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz Archive Link: http://www.mail-archive.com/flexradio%40flex-radio.biz/ FlexRadio Knowledge Base: http://kb.flex-radio.com/ FlexRadio Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com/
