[hpsdr] TAPR

[Eric Ellison]

Ahti

Several weeks ago a few of the project leaders working on boards which have
been pretty much designed, and I got together to brainstorm how we could
advance to the future, with an open source hardware and software scenario
and how we could finance the various projects, beyond just 'board' only,
projects, like the Atlas board.

About a week ago, Lyle put us in touch with the Directors and Officers of
TAPR, still in a small group to discuss what was do-able. TAPR is an obvious
choice, since their 'objectives' in R&D and DCC, have been well known for
many years. Also as mentioned in the announcement, they have a storefront,
and resources to provide state of the art products at virtually no mark-up
beyond costs. They are a non-profit organization, dedicated to advancing the
state of the art in digital communications. HPSDR although 'without formal
orgainzation' has been dedicated to almost the same goals, but without
financial and organizational resources. Some of the project leaders are
prominent TAPR leaders also.

It was not too difficult to make a decision, based on Atlas, Janus and Ozy
orders alone, that the HPSDR group just does not have the resources to
produce the end product. Group buys, without even knowing final cost would
be a nightmare for our HPSDR group. 

TAPR requested very little in return.
 
Briefly they would like more people to run for the 3 upcoming vacant
positions on the Board of Directors. I will be at least volunteering my
willingness to run, however, it is a nominated position. I would suggest
that HPSDR List folks here also consider doing that.

They are looking for people from this the HPSDR list, to help with the
process to getting from alpha to product, that they can offer. It might be
putting kits together, or mailing or other. We will have to see how that
goes, and how many might volunteer to do some behind the scenes work. I will
also be one of these volunteers and probably coordinate things between HPSDR
group and TAPR.

They are also interested in publications on this project, I think that means
in any publication, however, the Packet Status Register and Papers at the
DCC in September are also obvious choices.

The last request, basically was that we realize that they have a
responsibility to their membership when investing in this project.

My request in return, was that this be an association between HPSDR group as
it exists now, with the HPSDR Reflector, and all the donated resources
(Wiki, Web Page, etc. remain as a 'functional' organization. Whatever TAPR
offers in the way of 'purchases' will be HPSDR - TAPR projects. Call it a
'simple form' of branding and association.

The current project leaders, myself, and TAPR representatives to the
discussion group all agreed. The first product of that agreement is the
Atlas Kit of Parts. Expect to see additional offerings to appear and be
announced in the near future.

In the meantime, even though TAPR will probably offer the Ozy and Janus and
re-run of the Atlas for sale in the future, I am going to keep the HAMSDR
'order page' open for those three products. The Ozy and Janus 'orders' give
a fair estimation of interest as TAPR approaches these product decisions.

Of course, all of the Gerbers and files, and as far as I know, software will
always be 'open source'. So anyone can download and execute anything they
wish to do with the Intellectual Property. Although protected now by
individual copyright notices, this has been done so that HPSDR does not lose
the rights to their own property. Other methods of doing this will be
discussed in the future.

I think this is a 'Win-Win' all the way around.

Thanks!
Eric

 







 



-----Original Message-----
From: hpsdr-bounces at hpsdr.org [mailto:hpsdr-bounces at hpsdr.org] On Behalf Of
Ahti Aintila
Sent: Wednesday, June 07, 2006 2:54 PM
To: HPSDR List
Subject: [hpsdr] TAPR

***** High Performance Software Defined Radio Discussion List *****

All,

TAPR is joining forces with the HPSDR group:
<http://www.tapr.org/kits_atlas.html>

Any more details and background?

73, Ahti OH2RZ
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