Sad Tale of Greed and Aspiration.

I got excited when I read about the cheap chinese PNA tablets around
$100: 600MHz CP, Wince 6.0, fast GPS built-in.... On this NG.

Then it took a month to show up, after an attempted order cancellation
from the vendor (??) - Ever hear of such a thing?

I thought it would make a nice moving map update for my Garmin IQue with
Approach Systems MM (for $20, would you believe)

Then I found that the MM I was using didn't know wince 6.0.
Too bad.

Then I found that LK8000 DOES know Wince 6.0 Good!

Then I found you couldn't download LK8000, perhaps because a copyright
owner of XCsoar was objecting. Too bad.

So here I am sitting on my hands....

Brian W

On Wed, 25 Aug 2010 06:35:48 -0500, brian whatcott wrote:

Then I found you couldn't download LK8000, perhaps because a copyright
owner of XCsoar was objecting. Too bad.

Nah, its just XCSoar politics. LK8000 is a fork off XCSoar and, as that
is Open Source, copyright considerations don't apply.

Currently downloads are restricted to beta testers. I have a copy of
1.20i but then I've been corresponding with the developer since he was
working on the XCSoar 5.2.x PNA version. Contact me off-news if you'd
like his contact details.


--
martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
org |

On Aug 25, 7:03*am, Martin Gregorie
wrote:
On Wed, 25 Aug 2010 06:35:48 -0500, brian whatcott wrote:
Then I found you couldn't download LK8000, perhaps because a copyright
owner of XCsoar was objecting. * *Too bad.

Nah, its just XCSoar politics. LK8000 is a fork off XCSoar and, as that
is Open Source, copyright considerations don't apply.

Currently downloads are restricted to beta testers. I have a copy of
1.20i but then I've been corresponding with the developer since he was
working on the XCSoar 5.2.x PNA version. Contact me off-news if you'd
like his contact details.

--
martin@ * | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
org * * * |

What? Copyright very much applies to just about all open source
software. Unless an developer explicitly give up his copyright rights.
Most open source license agreements center around assenting the
copyright rights of the developers. Those developers often use those
rights to ensure others cannot restrict the abiliy for people to
freely copy and use that software and any changes to it made by
others.

XCSoar is licensed under the GPL license. That license (in various
versions) asserts the copyright right of the authors and uses
copyright to require modifications to the source code to continue to
include the original copyright, GPL license and to publish source code
to any modifications to the GPL licensed code. Modifications to the
GPL code must be published for any software made available publicly.
None of this should be a surprise to any developer who has read the
GPL.


Daryl

I've been using LK8000 for the last 8 months (and I love it)! I
placed well in 2 regionals and set 17 state records this year, all
while flying with LK8000 as my flight computer / nav system.

Here is my take on what's happening with LK8000 (keeping in mind that
I do not officially speak for the LK8000 developer and the following
statements are from someone who is not directly involved in the
development):

The LK8000 programmer originally was part of the XCSoar team.
However, changes in the person/people heading up XCSoar development
last year caused a rift amongst the people working on XCSoar. From
what I can tell, there were both political and technical issues.

The LK8000 programmer, not being able to make some desired changes to
XCSoar under the new regime, creates the LK8000 project as a way to
get these fixes & changes out to pilots. Along the way, the program
begins to change in many ways and the project grows in a lot of cool
new directions - such as FLARM support, a new Map & Topography format
(with faster load times and much greater detail). There is still a
lot of "XCSoar" at the heart of LK8000; but more and more of it is
being re-written and improved with each LK8000 release.

The GPL and the licenses covering XCSoar state that if you distribute
a program using XCSoar code, you must release the entire source-code.
The LK8000 developer does not want to do this, for various reasons
(including, IMHO, not wanting the new XCSoar developer to take the
work that was previously rejected and suddenly incorporate it into
XCSoar).

The person/people behind XCSoar these days have apparently made some
vague statements (possible legal threats) about LK8000 violating the
GPL and not sharing their code with the XCSoar team.

To reduce the controversy and retain control of LK8000 while all of
the new features and systems are being programmed & improved, the
LK8000 developer has chosen to release only alpha and beta test-
versions of the software to a limited group of people. My personal
opinion is that the motivation behind this is to avoid a direct
violation of the GPL by refusing to officially distribute the
program. However, the developer has made it clear that beta-testers
will not be prosecuted or "punished" if the program makes its way to
other people. The developer _is_ concerned about wide-spread use of
an "unfinished" product (although it is stable and fully usable).

As a result, there are people out there with download links and FTP
sites, giving away LK8000. The developer does not endorse this, but
seems to be OK with the fact that he cannot control what people do
with the program once they have it.

So the bottom-line is that you have to find someone who has the
program, and get a copy from them. The official Beta-testers will
probably always have the latest version, whilst other users may have a
slightly outdated version. (For example, Martin has 1.20i although
the latest version is 1.22b)

For more information, check out the LK8000 forums he
http://www.postfrontal.com/forum/default.asp?CAT_ID=11
And the LK8000 Manual he http://www.bware.it/LK8000/

Enjoy,

--Noel

Brian,

I have sent you a couple messages to the address listed below. If this isn't your preferred address please contact me directly.

Respectfully,
Wayne

"brian whatcott" wrote in message ...
I got excited when I read about the cheap chinese PNA tablets around
$100: 600MHz CP, Wince 6.0, fast GPS built-in.... On this NG.

Then it took a month to show up, after an attempted order cancellation
from the vendor (??) - Ever hear of such a thing?

I thought it would make a nice moving map update for my Garmin IQue with
Approach Systems MM (for $20, would you believe)

Then I found that the MM I was using didn't know wince 6.0.
Too bad.

Then I found that LK8000 DOES know Wince 6.0 Good!

Then I found you couldn't download LK8000, perhaps because a copyright
owner of XCsoar was objecting. Too bad.

So here I am sitting on my hands....

Brian W

On Aug 25, 4:35*am, brian whatcott wrote:
I got excited when I read about the cheap chinese PNA tablets around
$100: * 600MHz CP, Wince 6.0, fast GPS built-in.... On this NG.

Then it took a month to show up, after an attempted order cancellation
from the vendor (??) *- Ever hear of such a thing?

I thought it would make a nice moving map update for my Garmin IQue with
Approach Systems MM (for $20, would you believe)

Then I found that the MM I was using didn't know wince 6.0.
Too bad.

Then I found that LK8000 DOES know Wince 6.0 * *Good!

Then I found you couldn't download LK8000, perhaps because a copyright
owner of XCsoar was objecting. * *Too bad.

So here I am sitting on my hands....

Brian W

one of the guys in our club bought one of those chinese "Oudies", he's
up and running with LK8000, looks good too!
I run LK8000 on a PDA and on a PNA-310, very happy with it on both of
these units.

LK8000 V122B upgrade is out there.

Brad

On Wed, 25 Aug 2010 07:29:48 -0700, Darryl Ramm wrote:

What? Copyright very much applies to just about all open source
software. Unless an developer explicitly give up his copyright rights.

... but under GPL cannot stop people modifying and further distributing
that fork.

and to publish source code to any
modifications to the GPL licensed code. Modifications to the GPL code
must be published for any software made available publicly.

Not quite. The source must be made available to anybody who is using the
code but doesn't have to be broadcast or exposed on a public server. At
least, my reading of the GPL says you may only supply source on demand
with violating the GPL.


--
martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
org |

On Aug 25, 2:51*pm, Martin Gregorie
wrote:
On Wed, 25 Aug 2010 07:29:48 -0700, Darryl Ramm wrote:
What? Copyright very much applies to just about all open source
software. Unless an developer explicitly give up his copyright rights.

.. but under GPL cannot stop people modifying and further distributing
that fork.

and to publish source code to any
modifications to the GPL licensed code. Modifications *to the GPL code
must be published for any software made available publicly.

Not quite. The source must be made available to anybody who is using the
code but doesn't have to be broadcast or exposed on a public server. At
least, my reading of the GPL says you may only supply source on demand
with violating the GPL.

--
martin@ * | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
org * * * |

Please read carefully what I wrote. I've dealt with a lot of complex
GNU and other open source licensing issues, including thorny
permutations of closed source drivers in open source products, bundles
of closed and open source software etc. I even got to deal with
Richard Stallman when we forgot to publish source updated for some
controversial (to some folks) changes we had made to Linux and
associated software. He was rightly ****ed off and I think he thought
we were trying to do this deliberately. It was just our release
process screw up and we never made the mistake again.

I wrote "Made available publicly"... and by that I meant as as in a
soaring software provided publicly for download -- that would require
the source to be made available equally for download. Well that's
GNU's take on it, my take on it and likely most developers and lawyers
take on it. There is a GNU faq covering this and more at -

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html

A private beta is another issue. People within the beta certainly need
to be provided the source code if they ask. But it may be messier than
that.

I am not commenting on the technical skills, merits, intents or
anything else on either side of this, but the LK8000 developers should
have been clearly aware of the GNU open source implications.

To your original post, not that you've looked at the GNU license
you'll see it centers around copyright rights. That is a complete
surprise to many people who made the same natural assumption you did.


Darryl

On 8/25/2010 6:35 AM, I wrote:
I got excited when I read about the cheap chinese PNA tablets around
$100: 600MHz CP, Wince 6.0, fast GPS built-in.... On this NG.

Then it took a month to show up, after an attempted order cancellation
from the vendor (??) - Ever hear of such a thing?

I thought it would make a nice moving map update for my Garmin IQue with
Approach Systems MM app (called APIC for $20, would you believe)

Then I found that the MM app I was using didn't know wince 6.0.
Too bad.

Then I found that LK8000 DOES know Wince 6.0 - Good!

Then I found you couldn't download LK8000, perhaps because a copyright
owner of XCsoar was objecting. Too bad.

So here I am sitting on my hands....

Brian W


.....but not for very long! By lunch time, I received a note with a URL
which provided access to the manual and the executables for the PNA
version he is testing. And within minutes of downloading those materials
I was looking at the rather interesting possibilities that LK8000
provides on a Chinese cheapie.

I suppose, out of an excess of confidentiality, I should only mention
that it was one of the responders to this note who made his 122a version
available to me, though my inclination is to bless his kindness in
public and likewise all the people who came back so quickly.

For what it's worth: an app that runs as advertized out of the box,
needing only a pointer from the nav soft button to the micro SD address
where the whole ball of wax resides, has won me over already.
It picked up the GPS immediately and displayed the sat count
lat/lon/elevation when that display was selected.

I regret that I had previously put the PNA where a bottle of sun screen
could leak onto it, so I can confirm that the screen surround is not
liquid-proof, from the faint tide mark it left round the edge (Darn it!)

People might consider the virtues of a slim line of silicone bounded
pro temp by masking tape around the chrome screen edging (A tip given me
long ago for water proofing the rear transparency on my airplane)

I see that speeds and distances are presently in clicks and altitudes
are in meters though I see a ft conversion too and I suspect that units
are (or will soon be) selectable.

Someone somewhere has made useful display choices for number sizes,
colors and contrasts. I like the idea of sound coding the touch menu -
nifty touch! Now I need to find topography and a map (preferably the
whole US with airports though that is probably distinctly
un-glider-pilot-like....

Gratefully,

Brian Whatcott

On Aug 25, 6:49*pm, brian whatcott wrote:

Someone somewhere has made useful display choices for number sizes,
colors and contrasts. I like the idea of sound coding the touch menu -
nifty touch! Now I need to find topography and a map *(preferably the
whole US with airports though that is probably distinctly
un-glider-pilot-like....

Gratefully,

Brian Whatcott

Brian -

Glad you're up and running!

I strongly encourage you to sit down and read the manual; or at least
thumb through ALL of the System Configuration options in the program.
You can customize just about everything (units, colors, font sizes,
etc) to the way you like it. The program works well out of the box,
but there's a lot you can do to make it present just the information
that's important to you, and in just the way you want it presented.

As for maps, see the LK8000 website: www.bware.it/listing/LKMAPS/
(if you want US maps, check out the "NAM" folder, which stands for
"North AMerica").

Enjoy,

--Noel