Gene,
Ok.. yeah... I was pretty excited about it until it went haywire. I agree on the software issues. Near as I can tell the HPSDR group and TAPR have some personality problems. Case in point resulted in Phil defecting with QS1R. Glad he did because it is a more coherent product. What I don't get about TAPR.. they discontinue products people still want and they are apparently gone forever. The 10MHz distribution amp is the main one I would have liked to get but missed the boat. If you want something they have you better buy a few of them when available because they may vanish never to reappear.
Doc
I agree, there is a lot of stuff that TAPR offered at one time and then discontinued. No one seems to take up the discontinued projects. I think part of that is because TAPR produces those things at just a little over cost (since all the design work and prototypes are done for free by volunteers) and the cost expectations are set way too low to where no commercial for-profit entity can compete if they wanted to take up production. At least not in any country other than China or maybe India.
TAPR's time has come and gone if you look around. With places like KickStarter and others, funding projects is much easier than it was a few years ago. If you look at it over time, TAPR seems to have pissed off most of the people who actually made substantial and prolific contributions to HPSDR projects in the long run. Starting with the guy who founded HPSDR (Phil) all the way up to now (2012) with Abhi, who is now producing the HERMES under the Apache Labs name in India.
You've got to wonder about the long term viability of open hardware projects anyhow. With China becoming a place where those things can be produced so cheaply, any business outside of China is going to have a hard time staying in business producing open hardware. Recently, one manufacturer of an open 3D printer decided to make its 3D printer hardware projects closed now since some place in China started producing cheap versions of the original 3D printer that they put a lot of research and design work into. It might be seen as good for the consumers, but for those who actually do the work and have to try to make a small living on it, the entrance of cheap China producers is not great news. Someone has to foot the bill for research and design. China just makes copies of stuff.
My other concern is that buying stuff from India and China is not helping to keep anyone here in the USA in a job.
Gene
