[Elecraft] OT: Open Source Code

[Don Wilhelm]

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.
>