Hey, folks: The biggest barrier I see to wider Linux use in the ham shack is that the two most important pieces of software for hams, a general logger and a contest logger, are only available in single-platform versions that haven't drawn very large developer communities. Essentially, there's CQRLog for general logging, and about 1.5 usable contest loggers that all run in console windows.
None of these applications are available on Windows or Mac, so right away the pool of potential developers is only that tiny sliver of the Venn diagram where ham radio operators, qualified software developers, and Linux aficionados overlap. For CQRLog, the developer pool gets even smaller because it's in Pascal. And don't @ me with "Pascal is elegant" and so forth; I'm just referring to the objective fact that it's far less popular than, say, C++, and therefore has fewer programmers available to work on it. Since these applications are all Free, the developers who do work on them generally have day jobs and other commitments. So we have a tiny pool of people who are even qualified to work on these programs, and they're all working part-time. Of course progress is slow. Until someone develops a cross-platform logger using a popular framework, and manages to attract a critical mass of developers to it, this won't change. Consider Fldigi, which runs perfectly on Linux and gets maniacally frequent updates. That's all because it's drawn a large group of developers and users, the overwhelming majority of whom are using Windows in the shack. -- --Alan (AB1XW) -- Alan Dove, Ph.D. alan.d...@gmail.com 917.273.0544
