[hpsdr] Brief definition of Open Source.

[Larry Loen]

Philip Covington wrote:

>On 3/14/06, lloen at rapidwebllp.com <lloen at rapidwebllp.com> wrote:
>
>
>  
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>>The entire professional software world relies upon professionsals
>>understanding when and where the boundaries are in terms of "what they can
>>look at" when produced by third parties.
>>
>>Programmers make their living off of copyrighted and (now) patented
>>materials and the licenses that result from them.  It's not terribly wise
>>to spit in your own stew.
>>
>>Looking, willy-nilly, into code I have no need to see except raw
>>curiousity is just a bad idea for a serious professional.  It might
>>provide problems if you tried to join this or that project, whose
>>technical content one cannot possibly guess in advance -- I've had several
>>surpising changes of direction -- even though I have worked entirely at
>>IBM all my career.  If I unexpectedly left IBM someday, it would hardly
>>get _easier_ if I was always poking about, looking needlessly at whatever
>>was floating about the 'net.
>>    
>>
>
>If you do not allow yourself (or are not allowed by your employer) to
>look at source code (except your employer's), how do you learn
>anything new?
>
>73 de Phil N8VB
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>

That can be a bit of a problem.

The oversimplified and short answer is, short snippets of code in text 
books, tutorials, and so on, are not usually a problem.  Such code is 
typically pubished with a _presumption_ by the author, that it would be 
copied in some relevant part (though there can be exceptions even to 
this).  The problem arises when you begin to look into someone's product.



Larry  WO0Z




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