[Elecraft] Re: Re: Make PIC code open source

[Wayne Burdick]

We're running the business like we're going to around forever--nothing more,
nothing less  ;)

Wayne


Juerg Tschirren wrote:
> 
> Wayne,
> 
> I understand your concerns regarding intellectual property and technical
> integrity. Offering an accessory box is a very good idea, and this is
> probably the best way to go.
> 
>   One thing -- I am almost afraid to mention this here, and please do not take
> it the wrong way, but: what would happen if something bad happend to Elecraft
> (in clear-text, if Elecraft went out of business)? Let's hope that this will
> not happen for a long time to come, but what if? In this case, would the
> source be opened so people can continue to work on their K*? Might it even be
> necessary to pre-arrange that in some way so it is "waterprof" from the legal
> point of view.
> 
>   Again, no flaming now please. I am completely happy with the current
> situation (Elecraft alive, source closed, accessory box in near future), and
> I hope to build my K9 in 40 years from now!
> 
> Juerg
> 
> On Sunday 15 December 2002 14:35, Wayne Burdick wrote:
> > Hi Juerg (and others):
> >
> > I appreciate your sentiments regarding open source code. It's possible that
> > portions of it could be published in the future.
> >
> > Needless to say, a huge amount of time went into the development of the
> > firmware. Like other companies, we consider it an important part of our
> > intellectual property. Many of the algorithms we developed are novel and
> > very efficient, and are directly responsible for the success of the product
> > line. (The K2's main microcontroller uses only 16 k of ROM, runs at 4 MHz,
> > draws only a few mA, and requires no shielding. Controllers in competing
> > products generally use many times the ROM, run at much higher clock speeds,
> > draw a lot more current, and must be extensively shielded. Our design
> > choices in this area lead to the K2's viability as an easy-to-build kit and
> > as a portable transceiver.)
> >
> > There's another reason, too: we don't have time to monitor and support
> > third-party product development efforts. In particular, the auxBus (used to
> > control the K2's internal options) is not designed to accommodate a large
> > number of additional external devices. We could end up in a situation where
> > we have to fix a problem we didn't create. We just don't have the
> > engineering or customer-support resources to handle this.
> >
> > In lieu of making the source code available, we're working on an accessory
> > box that will decode certain auxBus commands and provide a number of
> > general-purpose buffered outputs. There will be a discrete output for each
> > band, a set of binary encoded band-select outputs, three transverter band
> > outputs, and three user-defined lines controlled by the secondary menu's
> > ACC entry.
> >
> > 73,
> > Wayne
> > N6KR
> >
> > Juerg Tschirren wrote:
> > > Making the PIC code open source would be a very good idea in my opinion.
> > > I hope the KPA100 / FCC  issue mentioned by Dan is not a real problem,
> > > and if it is then it may be possible to just keep the KPA100 - related
> > > parts closed-source, and open everything else.
> > >
> > >   It would be great to hear an official Elecraft statement about the
> > > open-sourcing idea.
> >
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> 
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