Re: [Discuss-gnuradio] Ettus Research News

[Matt Ettus]

Don,

If anyone out there that is actually a part of this community feels the 
way you do, I'd love to hear it.  But you just showed up and started 
making accusations.  I've been contributing to GNU Radio for nine years 
now.  I'll answer your questions for the sake of everyone else, though.

On 02/05/2010 01:20 PM, Don Fanning wrote:
> Heh... You know I wondered the exact same thing a few weeks ago.  Matt
> "informed" me that the .PCB files were never released.  I did find a
> copy of the gEDA files used to make the schematic drawings for the USRP
> from a older GNURadio mirror.  So much of what I'm seeing from Matt has
> been a move away from Open Source and more towards "Closed Development".

This is nothing new.  The .PCB files for the USRP1 and USRP2 were never 
released.  This has been openly discussed on this mailing list in the 
past, and you are the first to express any real problem with it. 
Besides, the .PCB files are all in PADS format, and licenses to that 
program cost tens of thousands of dollars.

As for the .sch files, we have moved our source control, our hosting, 
and our website, and been moving to a new build system all at the same 
time.  We've also been trying to clean up these (sometimes very old) 
schematics to make them work with the current gEDA tools.

Also, we've had a number of people build their own copies of our 
hardware, and when they don't work, try to get us to replace them by 
lying and saying they bought it from us.

So I hope you can excuse us for not rushing to get schematic files to 
someone who has never paid us anything more than insults.


> I love how the USRP brochure has this blurb:
>
> "Open Source Community
> The entire USRP design is open source, including schematics,
> firmware, drivers, and even the FPGA and daughterboard
> designs. When combined with the open source GNU Radio
> software, you get a completely open software radio system
> enabling host-based signal processing on commodity platforms.
> No software or licenses need to be purchased."

Not a word in that is, was, or will be false.

> While to the letter of the law he did provide the above details, he
> has/will not provide all the information/engineering drawings necessary
> for people to roll their own boards or to import existing designs so
> they can be modified to suit a person's/organization's project.  I can
> understand why being this is how he makes a living, but at the same time
> he shouldn't be promoting the design as open source... just open
> architecture-ish...
>
> On the other hand, the HPSDR is completely open.


You are fully welcome to use an HPSDR product.  You'll find that in 
addition to a lot of work of their own, they use a bunch of firmware and 
FPGA code that we wrote.

Matt