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

[Eric Blossom]

On Wed, Oct 15, 2008 at 11:34:42AM -0400, George Nychis wrote:
>
> As Frank mentioned, he has not-so-mature code which can be useful to  
> others, but not primetime for the GR repo.  It's a good example of  
> something that would go to CGRAN.

Agreed.

> In direct reponse to Greg, I think CGRAN is more than just for people  
> who aren't FSF assignment.  Some people don't want to go through the  
> hassle of following the GR conventions, writing the QA code, cleaning up  
> the code, and actually trying to integrate it.  

Oh, you mean really making it work, and making it work on more than
just your current architecture, OS and version :-)

> 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 CGRAN is a good place for this code and if someone
> wants to fix it up for the repo, someone has to get assignments and
> it goes in.  Without CGRAN, the code is probably going to be lost in
> between, in a dead SVN repo or the author has no place to put it.

All good observations.


I'd like to say a couple of words about the copyright assignment
processes.  In 95% of the cases, it's very simple.  You fill out a
simple email form, the FSF copyright clerk sends you a couple of pages
of hardcopy paperwork, you sign them and mail them back.  Done.

What some folks (students mostly) find out when they head down this
path, is that there is a non-zero probability that they don't actually
own what they _think_ is their own work.  This may be extremely
disconcerting, but it's not really a GR problem.  Think of it as a
crash course in copyright.  It's important to read and pay attention
to the fine print on employment, research or stipend agreements (all
contracts, really).  In cases where somebody else may claim ownership
of the work there's an extra step.  That step is getting either a
disclaimer or an assignment from the school or employer.  This is
generally not a big deal either.  With some schools, we negotiate a
single agreement covering all of their students for all GNU projects.
Others are handled by a disclaimer from their professor or sponsor, or
whatever.

I hope this helped shed some light on the process.

Eric