Re: [Discuss-gnuradio] updated BBN 80211 code?

[Michael Dickens]

On Oct 15, 2008, at 11:34 AM, George Nychis wrote:
> A lot of students work on GNU Radio, and we work towards a deadline  
> and our goal is typically to get it to work as fast as possible, not  
> as fast and as clean as possible.  Once that deadline hits, we're  
> typically done :P

I second or third this aspect of "student-hood".  YA aspect, as sort  
of, almost, brought up by Thomas, is the university-required  
licensing / intellectual-property issues.  In his case (UCLA), he can  
choose an open-source license (preferably BSD).  In my case, ND does  
not specify a license that I can pick (or not), but there is a well- 
defined IP clause covering graduate student works (not undergrads, but  
also faculty, staff, and so forth ... those who are being paid either  
directly by ND or make significant use of ND's resources to get paid  
[e.g., via a stipend]): IP is owned by the student, advisor,  
department, school, and university.  The only way I can donate my code  
to CGRAN (or the gnuradio trunk) is with the permission of "the food  
chain" all the way to the top ... which is not realistic for most  
students or advisors to obtain.  Most advisors at ND are not yet aware  
of the "recent" addition (interpretation, really) of grad. students to  
the list of IP-covered individuals, but they should be since they are  
liable to "the powers that be" to make sure IP is properly disclosed  
before a license (open-source or other) can be approved.

IMHO this is all quite a PITA, but it's what we have to live with and  
I'm sure other students are in a similar circumstance even if they  
don't know it right now.

My advice to friends / students in other universities / businesses is  
to carefully check the IP policy of their institution, talk with their  
advisor(s) / manager(s), and perform "due diligence" before assigning  
a license and / or signing over their code to the FSF.  You're more  
likely to gain forgiveness if you can show how hard you tried to "do  
the right thing" first.