FreeBSD Ham Radio
The Ham Radio on FreeBSD Project is an effort to make FreeBSD a great operating system for ham radio operators. Linux has captured attention due to such things as AX.25 being part of the network stack and better publicity. Our aim is to improve ham radio support in ports and advocate for FreeBSD amongst ham radio operators.
Porting
List of Ham Radio FreeBSD Ports
Particularly for those less familiar with ham radio software, we may have apparently older but working versions of software in the tree. Due to the realities of the wider ham radio software ecosystem, every change is a breaking change unless thoroughly dogfooded/ran and tested. Not dissimilar to scientific software, many (solo at that) developers and maintainers are not software/release experts, but rather more versed in RF and the problems their programs aim to solve. The original efforts are more likely than not disproportionate to any compensation or remuneration; as a reminder ham radio is largely a hobby that discourages or disallows remuneration. There is no guarantee of version semantics representing API/ABI breakages, and older software paradigms may persist longer than usual. We can only do our best to respect the original software's wishes and intentions whilst offering working software to our users.
Submissions of new ports or updates through the various channels may take longer than usual or have additional questioning attached.
Advocacy
db efforts have been published here: http://bsdtalk.blogspot.com/2007/05/bsdtalk111-freebsd-developer-diane.html
db gave a talk on Hamradio on FreeBSD to a local Ottawa club http://www.oarc.net slides at http://www.oarc.net/presentations/hamradio_on_freebsd.pdf
Dru Lavigne has written about our porting effort here http://blogs.ittoolbox.com/unix/bsd/archives/ham-radio-on-freebsd-14564
Team Members
Contributors
<lambert AT lambertfam DOT org>
<sunrychen AT gmail DOT com>
<toyokun AT gmail DOT com>
<akh AT nobugware DOT com>
<takefu AT airport DOT fm>
<baitisj AT pcbsd DOT org>
Contact
There is a mailing list devoted to Ham radio operators on BSD in general, not just FreeBSD:
BSD-Ham mailing list - Amateur Radio Software for BSD systems
<BSD-Ham AT mailman DOT qth DOT net>
Four members of the porting team are on BSD-Ham - SoerenStraarup, DianeBruce, StephenHurd and CharlieLi .
Some members are available on #BSD-hamradio channel on the GeekShed IRC network.
Future Work
- Finish work on tcp/ip to ax.25 UI code
- Find more volunteers to help (and get licensed)