[hpsdr] HPSDR "Project Outline" and TAPR

[Philip Covington]

Regarding this HPSDR webpage recently added to the HPSDR website:
<http://hpsdr.org/project_outline.html>

The "Project Outline" page added (without previous discussion) to the
HPSDR website does not correctly describe or represent the HPSDR
project's relationship to TAPR or the correct procedure for HPSDR
project acceptance.

See comments below:

----------------------
"TAPR proposal
    Sometime in each process, at about this step, a proposal is made
to TAPR for funds to build the boards. cwBuild printed circuit boards
is usually a very expensive process and it assures the project leader
that the board development is worth proceeding. TAPR proposal examples
can be found on the Wiki."
----------------------

TAPR is not HPSDR and vise verse.  If a HPSDR developer wants to
propose that TAPR support a HPSDR project then he is free to ask for
that support.  This does not mean that TAPR acceptance of a project is
a prerequisite for acceptance as a HPSDR project.  If this were
otherwise, the ultimate decision on what whether a proposed project is
accepted by HPSDR would be made by the TAPR board of directors by
either accepting or rejecting a project proposal.  I don't think this
is what was intended when TAPR announced that they were supporting the
HPSDR project.

There have been various HPSDR projects that were not manufactured and
sold by TAPR.  Proposing that TAPR manufacture and sell a HPSDR
project is __optional__.

------------------------------
"Distribution production by TAPR
    TAPR will generally make the prepaid boards plus some number of
boards that TAPR decides they are willing to support. The boards are
sold through the TAPR website. The TAPR mission is not to be a
provider of radio boards but to support the development of the radio
technology. They intend to recoup the invested development costs and
to support future TAPR projects."
------------------------------

Again, the above is not a requirement for a HPSDR project.  A HPSDR
project does not have to be supported by, manufactured by, or sold by
TAPR.

------------------------------
"Documents made available to other producers
    Because TAPR in not interested in supporting of the project boards
past the development stage, the HPSDR project uses the Open Hardware
License and all the files necessary to build the boards are places on
the HPSDR website. This allows those interested in producing boards to
make them available to amateur radio operators that have not already
obtained a board. "
-----------------------------

To be a HPSDR project the proposed project's developer does not have
to use the Open Hardware License. You cannot dictate what kind of
license a developer must release his project under.  The Open Hardware
License did not exist when the HPSDR project was created.  All of the
HPSDR boards that TAPR produced up to this point was not under the
Open Hardware License.  For example Penelope and Mercury were released
by the developers under the Non Commercial License (NCL) not the Open
Hardware License (OHL).  Only after TAPR has sold all of the Penelope
boards it produced was the license for Penelope changed to the Open
Hardware License.  This was to protect TAPR's investment in those
individual projects by prohibiting a commercial manufacturer from
producing and selling the boards in competition with TAPR.

The has never been a requirement of a particular license for a HPSDR
project.   TAPR can always change their requirement for acceptance for
supporting a HPSDR project to requiring the developers release the
project under OHL, but that is not a requirement for HPSDR.  Most of
the boards and projects that TAPR does support ARE NOT licensed under
the Open Hardware License anyhow.

I hope that someone from TAPR's board of directors will comment here
on TAPR's stance on these issues.  If a prerequisite for a HPSDR
project is TAPR project acceptance then I would suggest that the HPSDR
project be renamed to the TAPR SDR project or something similar!

Dave, KV0S, why was this webpage added to the HPSDR website without
previous discussion here?  It implies an entanglement of HPSDR and
TAPR that was not the original intent of TAPR supporting HPSDR.

Phil N8VB