[hpsdr] Why?

[Bill Tracey]

Answers to some queries in line.

Bill (kd5tfd)

At 03:34 AM 5/13/2009, Chris Down wrote:
><...snip...>
>I have been passively following this project for a while and 
>contemplating getting involved in the project, however after recent 
>events I have some concerns.

We're always happy to have folks that want to get involved and are 
looking to make a contribution.


>Who makes the decisions on the direction of the project?

Mostly those that do the work.  There is no central HPSDR 
planning/approval board - what gets designed and built is very much a 
function of who is willing to invest time in getting a 
project  done.    Many folks have proposed projects, some have 
managed to get them designed and built or managed to assemble a team 
to do such.

As to what TAPR offers and supports that's a decision TAPR makes.  If 
a project wishes to approach TAPR to get funding on alpha boards or 
to do a production run then I believe they propose it to the TAPR 
board.  If someone wants to produce a  project with someone other 
than TAPR I don't think there's an issue with that either.  Along as 
the licenses and copyrights of the folks contributing to a project 
are followed I don't think anyone really cares how something is produced.


>Do any of these people have any commercial interests that could 
>influence the direction of the project? If so this should be stated 
>publicly on the web site.

Of the current and past  contributors I know of only one that has 
commercial interests in the amateur SDR market.   I believe another 
contributor works for/with a non SDR amateur radio manufacturer.    I 
don't believe anyone has ever hid their involvement in a commercial 
amateur radio enterprise.


>Who owns and controls the domain name openhpsdr.org? Unfortuantely 
>the owner as opted to protect the details by using a private 
>registration proxy.

At the moment I believe it is TAPR.


>What safeguards are in place to prevent a similar situation 
>occurring in future?

At the moment, none other then the good sense of whoever has the 
login credentials for the DNS hosting account for the domain.


>How many people have administration rights to the wiki and website 
>and who are these people?

I believe Dave, KV0S admins the Wiki (and the website perhaps). A 
number of people have editing capabilities on it.  There are believe 
2 people that watch the mailing list, I don't recall their calls @ 
the moment.  Don AE5K  provides web hosting and admins that although 
we'll have to change that in the next few weeks since Don no longer 
wishes to provide that service.



>Do you intend to allow registered members to edit wiki pages?

I would hope so.   After the current bruhaha dies down perhaps we can 
figure out how to do that in a fashion people are comfortable with.


>Perhaps the answers to the above should be documented as an overview 
>of the project administration structure on a wiki page.

If someone want to write it all down that would be fine.  Perhaps we 
organize as some sort of non profit entity and have bylaws and 
officers. to prevent this from happening again.   I hope it does not 
come to  this -- this has always been a very informal organization 
with no formal rules, no officers etc.  I'd like to hope we can find 
someway to get comfortable about not getting DNSjacked  again without 
having to become a  formal organization.

><...snip...>
>
>Sorry to ask so many questions and I know we would all rather be 
>dealing with technical issues. However I feel it is important to 
>understand why this situation occurred and what we as a community 
>can do to prevent it happening again and also prevent a split in the community.

Hope I've answered  some of your questions.


>Regards
>
>Chris G8MXW



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