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toygyesterday at 10:00 PM3 repliesview on HN

Could it be because of the history of radio and early electronics being full of inventors getting ripped off by unscrupulous parties...?


Replies

ted_dunningtoday at 4:47 PM

That is certainly the myth that drives this.

There is also a fair bit of demographics at play. Many of the people writing these little applications grew up and imprinted before open source was much of a thing.

fragmedetoday at 10:52 AM

Hurt people hurt people, as they say. The entire field is held back because of trauma. "I could invent something amazing but get screwed out of it because someone else has money and lawyers" is just no way to live. The problem for radio is I could invent the most magical amazing transmitter, but it's worth absolutely nothing if there's no corresponding receiver. Which is to say, open standards are everything. Meshtastic/MeshCore/etc are interesting because they're open. It doesn't have to be. Off-grid mesh communication is a solved problem, just buy a GoTenna. Problem is it's proprietary. But it works, with a whole lot less drama.