[aprssig] Is WXSVR Permanently Defunct???

[Steve Dimse]

On Jul 28, 2009, at 11:13 PM, Ben Jackson wrote:

> And assuming that the person could snap his fingers and make an
> identical copy of his radio so that he can have one and you can have  
> one
> the same way people can make copies of their codebases that's a valid
> analogy.
>
If the ham magically created a duplicate radio he has violated the  
intellectual property of Kenwood or Yaesu, but that's another argument.

> It's up to the author what he wants to do with his or her code, but if
> he or she is no longer going to maintain or offer services, keeping
> their code locked up is like a kid taking their toy, not playing with
> it, and saying "NO! It's MINE!" if another kid asks to play with it.  
> It
> accomplishes nothing.

First, a kid may be taking his ball and going home because his mother  
told him he needed to be home then. Or maybe he has chest pains. Or  
maybe the ball was leaking. You may not know the motivation of why  
someone turns off a service, and he is under no obligation to explain  
it to you. Dale has provided years of free service to the community,  
and to do anything less that thank him profusely is unfair. We  
shouldn't demand an explanation.

Second, I think you grossly overestimate the value of this code.  
Running a service like this is 5% in the code and 95% in the technique  
of setting up and maintaining the system. When Dale set this up it was  
dependent on the EMWIN feed from NOAA GOES satellites. Perhaps he  
updated to get the FTP feed, but if not, how many people are willing  
to buy and set up a specialized sat dish and receiver? If you do, you  
still need to understand the way the code works so you can maintain  
it. That is always easier to do if you write your own than use someone  
else's. If you are talking about a million line professionally written  
and documented system, the work of writing your own will be far  
greater and taking over code makes sense. In this case, the problem is  
small enough I suspect it will be easier to write your own.

Finally, it IS his ball, he has EVERY RIGHT to take it home. You make  
this sound like a temper tantrum, but it was not, the server just went  
away after many months notice.

Steve K4HG