Hi Matthew,
On 22-05-12 02:29, Matthew Pitts wrote: > Elecraft is another name that comes to mind (I have an Elecraft K2 in my > hamshack), although I think I understand the general meaning behind what > Kristoff wrote; there are a lot of projects that don't succeed because the > people doing them don't understand the subtle nuances of running a business > and they get discouraged enough to just give up. Well, that's indeed another dangers of this: people grow tired of their project and it dies. But there is actually another issue I like to mention: the basic idea of open source. The idea of open source is openness and reuse, giving people freedom and -at the same time- taking a way the "single supplier" risk. For software, this is now well known: document your software, layered approach, APIs, etc. For hardware, however, this is still more novel. The codec2 project is a project of the ham community, which is -by nature- a more technically minded audience. So it would be interesting if the project would be about more then just producing some end-device that people can buy. It should be something that fellow hams can learn from, can make themselfs and use it for other purposes then it was intended. This is a bit what I do not like about some of the project that just provide a "ready to use" box: If somebody is interested to know how somethings works, if she wants to reuse part of it or repair it, this can be much harder then expected. You open the box and see .... a circuit board full of SMD components (impossible to repair) and a design specifically geared towards the production methode of the company that has made it. I know that is how hardware is made these days, but the end result is still as it is. I, having a software background, I like a more "layered" approach. A design on -say- a addon board for a off-the-shelf board which seperating the "radio interface" from the "processing" part. This would mean that somebody in two or three years from now (when we have all grown tired of this project and moved on to something else) can to take this design and rebuild it on whatever board is available at that point in time. As I see it, if the goal is just now to build a device that can interface with existing radios via FM, the hardware part of it is pretty limited; hence the "layered" approuch. Granted, there is nowdays a big part of the ham community that are just users and just want to buy a box and talk. But, one thing does not exclude the other. I do not have an issue with "ready-to-use" devices by itself.So it would be sad to see that there would be ONLY kind of product coming out of this. For instance, it would be nice to ALSO publish prototype designs of the project, boards that CAN be reproduced by other people and them to "fork" their own little project out of it. An open source hardware should be more then just some box full of SMD components on a PCB, publishing the scematics, sticking a CC license to it and call yourself "open source" as that is the fashionable thing to do these days. As I see it, open source is not only about making something. It's about doing it in a way that makes yourself redudant at the same time!!! OK. I hereby rest my case and now go back to actually making things. :-) 73 Kristoff - ON1ARF ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Live Security Virtual Conference Exclusive live event will cover all the ways today's security and threat landscape has changed and how IT managers can respond. Discussions will include endpoint security, mobile security and the latest in malware threats. http://www.accelacomm.com/jaw/sfrnl04242012/114/50122263/ _______________________________________________ Freetel-codec2 mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freetel-codec2
