Hello Harald!
> This is true, but even OpenBSC and related projects are suffering from a
> lack of attention. Despite being one of the founders of sysmocom, I
> really don't like to see the development and maintenance responsibility
> within one entity (or, let's say Holger and me privately, and sysmocom
> asa company). We need more contributors in all Osmocom projects.
Well, IMHO this lack of contribution partially caused by ignorance of
some developers about the Osmocom project existence. Despite the fact,
that one and it's child projects already was presented on multiple
international forums and congresses, there are some people who aren't
observing these events or who have no opportunity to do so, I think.
This is why I am currently writing the publications about Osmocom project
(mostly about OsmocomBB yet) for the most popular IT blog in Russia, named
Habrahabr. After the first publication I found, that many people didn't
knew anything about Open Source mobile telecommunications so far. But now
some of them are interested in contribution and research in this area.
I hope it will help to improve current situation.
> Honestly, I'm not sure. The big difference is that there are commercial
> users of OpenBSC, OsmoBTS, etc., and they can afford to fund some of the
> work on those projects. For OsmocomBB I don't think there's much of a
> chacne for commercial interest. You can buy an entire phone for USD 10
> these days, including a license for the protocol stack / software - so
> why bother investing in a "new" implementation of GSM.
Yes, but except commercial demands there is also an educational side of
OsmocomBB. Personally for me, one has played a key role in mobile
telecommunications learning process. In our educational institutions
students are learning mobile networks very superficially, mostly the
physical basics of Um-interface, while some important hw and sw details
isn't covered as well. So, nowadays SDR devices becomes more and more
available, I think it's time to bring a 'wind of change' to this area.
> For LTE, there's luckily the excellent free software srsUE
> implemntation. However, it requires a Core-i5, unless somebody manages
> to transplant the protocol stack onto one of the commercially found LTE
> baseband / PHY implementations actually used in phones.
I saw this project, this guys exactly prefer to use SDR platforms. BTW,
do you know anything about industrial/commercial demands of this project?
> Getting back further to your question: Even on the supported hardware
> (Calypso based phones), there are still many bugs and features missing,
> and nobody contributes. It makes me quite sad, as Andreas and I have
> put in a lot of energy to get the project going, but then nobody really
> got int carrying it along further.
Yes, agree with you. Supported hardware takes a place in this problem
too. I know some people who have no opportunity to contribute because
it's impossible to find even one out of stock Motorola phone in their
locations. This makes me feeling sad too.
> We all are, but mostly the work gets done when we are not looking but
> actually writing code :P No offence, I just couldn't resist...
No problem, I am completely agree with you and going to start working as
soon as I will have free time. At the moment I have some pending exams.
> All the best, I'd definitely love to see progress on the "SDR based PHY
> for OsmocomBB" front.
Thank you very much! Your opinion is important for me.