[RTTY] Soundcard and Serial ports

[Dave AA6YQ]

I'm not sure how interesting this discussion will be to the RTTY reflector,
so I'll limit myself to one set of comments (denoted by >>>below); you and I
and anyone else interested can take it direct from here.



-----Original Message-----
From: rtty-bounces at contesting.com [mailto:rtty-bounces at contesting.com]On
Behalf Of Rick Ruhl
Sent: Sunday, January 25, 2009 9:48 PM
To: rtty at contesting.com
Subject: Re: [RTTY] Soundcard and Serial ports


Dave.

Back when you worked for Rational though, it was in a commercial market and
on the leading edge of development too, you didn't have much shareware and
freeware to compete with.

I was at Software Link then and it was an entirely difference universe and
market than ham radio.

In fact Rational Rose (and then after you guys bought Visual Test) made IBM
realized how valuable the tools were and then bought Rational.

>>>We knew from the start that Rose would be commoditized, and so planned a
whole series of  value-laden add-ons that could complement an
eventually-free core product. We gave Microsoft a free subset of Rose that
they shipped with Visual Studio to help bootstrap the visual modeling
market. And as expected, a ton of UML (modeling) freeware became (and
remains) available, including the incredible Eclipse development
environment.

Your freeware stuff is some of the best out there, commercial or not, by
far.  In fact, Im sure it would easily sell on the open market for
$100-$200, but there is crappier freeware and shareware out there written by
hams who have no clue about software development, and hams would rather use
that because it's FREE, than even your good stuff, much less quality
commercial software.

>>>Users choose software based on the match between its capabilities and
their needs, not based on how it was developed. Obviously a better
development process should lead to higher quality and increased
responsiveness to user suggestions, but some ops have modest requirements
and are happier with an unchanging minimalist application that you or I
might consider under-powered because it doesn't push them up a learning
curve they don't need or value. Some ops prefer an "everything in one big
window" UI, others prefer multiple windows. Some like menus, others hate
them. So I (mostly) don't second-guess user decisions; I just do the best I
can for my chosen target audience.

There is also a mentality in our small industry that if you're a ham, you
shouldn't charge other hams for software. That's nuts. Who else but a
software developer who is a ham that would know the needs of what hams want
and need in ham radio.

>>>I don't hear much griping about Alex VE3NEA's DX Atlas -- it's a
beautiful, highly functional, well-implemented application that most hams
seem thrilled to pay for. It clearly offers more value than available
freeware, including mine. As long as Alex provides attractive functionality
over-and-above what's available for free, he will prosper and hams will
benefit. Thus in my view there's a symbiotic relationship between free
software and commercial software: free software attracts first-time users
and acquaints them with what's possible, leading a fraction to eventually
"upgrade" to commercial applications that offer more value. Said another
way, free software is free marketing for (appropriately-positioned)
commercial software -- and hardware.

But what I think freeware does is take away from possible good products by
taking market share away.  The ham market is a cottage market, that there is
no way development companies can hire good coders, testers, QA, doc and
support people. This means that it costs JOBS and god knows we need in this
economy, we need to create jobs.

>>>I disagree. Free software creates *more* opportunities for commercial
hardware and software by educating new users and creating a market. Consider
microHam, for example; I've not seen their numbers, but my guess is that a
significant fraction of their excellent hardware-software products are sold
to ops running free software. And they're a relatively new company.

And this would means jobs for hams in the ham industry.

>>>I've never seen anyone be successful in a technology business by focusing
on job creation. Focus on users and their needs, develop innovative and
high-quality products, and your problem will be recruiting enough good
people to meet the demand, not creating enough jobs. Yes, the relatively
small worldwide population of hams means we probably won't see the next
Google roar out of the amateur radio hardware/software business, but great
companies have started in stranger places...

     73,

          Dave, AA6YQ