This is merely a historical archive of years 2008-2021, before the migration to mailman3.
A maintained and still updated list archive can be found at https://lists.osmocom.org/hyperkitty/list/osmocom-sdr@lists.osmocom.org/.
Leif Asbrink leif at sm5bsz.comHello Peter, > Your software (both source and binaries) undisputably constitutes a > derivative work of rtl-sdr, because it calls rtl-sdr. Well, my software will not call rtl-sdr if that package is not installed. I do not think "derivative" would be an appropriate description. What I want to achieve is that anyone who wants to use the dsp code that I wrote myself should be allowed to extract whatever he wants and use it in whatever way he wants. > A consequence is that your software is not really in the public > domain, as long as it calls rtl-sdr. > > Also keep in mind that the concept of public domain is problematic > across international copyright law. All nations do not allow an > author to abstain their copyright; I believe that's the case here > in Europe for example. I talked to a specialist. Sure I can abstain my copyright, but you are right - I am allowed to change my mind afterwords so anyone who uses it without a license faces a risk that I may change my mind. That is no good, seems I have to change my mind... > For maximum freedom I like to use the MIT license: > > http://opensource.org/licenses/MIT > > I understand the only requirement to be that copyright notices and > the license itself are also copied, when copying the source code. OK. Seems to solve all the problems, the cruicial thing is "substantial" here: "shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software." It will be ok for anyone to take blocks from the dsp code and add into proprietary code without adding the license text. I do not think anyone would be interested in substantial portions of Linrad for other projects. My programming style is far from modern... > > The e4k tuner works very well, actually it is > > very competitive when compared to the FUNcube Pro dongle, > > but only with a modified library. > > http://www.sm5bsz.com/linuxdsp/hware/funcube/funcube.htm > > I urge you to work with the rtl-sdr maintainers to find how your > improvements can be reworked so that they are included in rtl-sdr. > > It is a waste of everyone's time that you keep some local changes. I sent some suggestions to Steve Markgraf. I hope he finds the mods I need to get good performance suitable for the rtl-sdr library. > Like authors of closed software you are circumventing the intent of > the rtl-sdr authors, but that is of course your prerogative. I actually find this hard to understand. What do you mean that their "intent" is? > To make your software unproblematic for others to use I urge you to > choose a permissive license that you like, in the list of popular > approved open source licenses. Here's the list: > http://opensource.org/licenses/category > > MIT is IMO the shortest and simplest of them. That's why I like it a > lot for maximum freedom software. Fine. It seems to do exactly what I want:-) Once I have given a license I can not change my mind. Or at least I will not easily be able to hurt someone who used it:-) Regards Leif / SM5BSZ