Carl R. Stevenson wrote:
"John Smith" wrote in message
news
Carl:

Exactly, why would arrl back such a system?

If they, indeed are, I don't think they should be ...

They aren't.

Amateur radio should not allow any PROPRIETARY hardware/software to become
a standard. We are not about supporting monopolies, we are about the free
experimentation, development, testing, construction, use, etc. of equip.
and methods/protocols, even that equipment encompassed by the homebrewer.

We need some more linux people in amateur radio for the software and more
computer hardware people for the hardware... it would be a mistake to
support companies holding a monopoly, there are already commercial
stations for that... besides, windows software just ends up enriching
bill g.

While I have experience with linux I am forced by the need for a number of
applications to use Windows XP on most of my machines.
I think there are a lot of people in the same boat, so I don't think that
you're going to get an overwhelming majority of hams to abandon the Windows
OS and move to linux exclusively ... HOWEVER, open source ham APPLICATIONS
can be ported to both operating systems so the users don't have to be locked
out by their choice (whether they're "forced" to use Windows for other
reasons or not) of OS.

Right. The huge majority of us don't "choose" our operating systems, we
choose our apps for our own particular purposes and use the O/S needed
to run the apps. As is the case in just about all fields, including ham
radio, Gates has a virtual hammerlock on us because the vast majority
of the apps we need are written for Windows and not for Linux or OS X
or O/S2. Yes it's a vicious circle, the momopoly from hell. Reality is
what it is.

Take my own primary operating interest which is HF dxing and dx
contesting and the current leading edge software used by the tens of
thousands of us dxers and contesters. Writelog, DX4WIN and TRLog and
others, almost all Windows apps. There are a few legacy DOS loggers
like CT which are still widely used and a few MAC and rudimentary Linux
loggers floating around but they're all but invisible in competitive
contesting.

Consider the N1MM contest logging program which is very much a
collaborative, open source program. It's *huge*, the manual alone is
350 pages. It does stunts like variable speed keying CW via the printer
port, a mouse click on an onscreen 2M packet spot will bandswitch just
about any brand/model HF xcvr to a specific freq on any band almost
instantly and on and on.

Maybe it can be ported to Linux, I wouldn't know. What I do know is
that I utterly fail to understand why anybody would even think about
porting this beast over to Linux when it's obviously so much easier to
simply run it in Win 98 or whatever in some surplus $100 Winbox and be
done with it.

73,
Carl - wk3c

w3rv