Ask HN: targeting stores that sell GPL-violating devices? - <AUTHOR>

I'm becoming frustrated by the number of Android devices being sold in Australia without source being released as per the GPL.
It occurred to me that instead of dealing with each individual manufacturer, it may be more effective to seek an injunction against stores selling the services - essentially naming a list of violating devices and asking that the court prohibit them from selling them.
By making it the stores problem, that ought to create far more pressure on manufacturers than direct complaints.
I have several questions I hoped the HN folks might be able to shed some light on:
* Does the seller of a device have obligations under the GPL, if that device is manufactured by a third party?  I think so, and in the past sellers (e.g. Telstra) have stepped up to pressure manufacturers into compliance.
* Has this approach been tried before, and with what results?
* Is there someone in Australia with a history of GPL litigation who might be able to provide some extra info?
I imagine that the main problem would be paying for the lawyer(s).  Crowdsourcing could help here, I imagine. <comment><USER2> Yes, anybody who distributes has the obligation to give the receiver of GPL'd code exactly the same rights as the maker and/or distributer.

You need aliances to make bigger parties comply, the bigger the fish the bigger your aliances need to be, I do not know Australian law specific but there is a german guy that has had some victories over this.

Try to contact the EFF or similar foundation in your country.

Good luck, oh yes, I am a programmer that made some GPL'd work, mostly for private clients, but this is a public distribution: [http://sitebar.org/](http://sitebar.org/) I mean the client, the server is programmed by Ondrej Brablc.

</comment><comment><USER3> IMO creating collateral damage just pisses people off so that they'll never listen to you in the future. What about getting the devices seized by customs?

<comment><AUTHOR> The point isn't collateral damage, though. The point is to make violating devices unprofitable to buy and sell.

Re. customs, that's an interesting angle. I'm sure there are 'Intellectual Property' protection laws that could be invoked to, say, seize pirated shirts or CDs at the border. Perhaps those laws could be invoked against violating devices?</comment></comment>


Building a speech recognition system for amateur radio communication - <AUTHOR> https://towardsdatascience.com/make-amateur-radio-cool-again-said-mr-artificial-intelligence-36cb32978fb2?gi=c0da39b2ee89 <comment><USER2> I tend to agree with the many people that say that ham radio is a dying hobby - both literally because it's practitioners are becoming silent keys by the hundreds a day, and newcomers are in it only to meet the minimum requirements for legally using cheap Chinese handheld radios (if they do so at all) and to use high-power transmitters for drone control and video, or as "preppers," and figuratively in that there are a lot fewer innovations in radio by radio amateurs today than there were several years ago, when the science of radio was primarily in the hands of hobbyists. Now it's in the hands of telecom corporations, academic and research institutions, and the defense industry, meanwhile ham radio is more or less still stuck in a bygone era, slowly coming to the present time through grassroots innovations in software defined radio technologies, the free and open source codec2, extremely robust synchronous digital modulations for shortwave channels, which are slowly starting to be recognized by the mainstream.

We don't have the kinds of technologies in a ham radio that we take for granted in our cell phone - yet - and bringing ham radio up to speed really hasn't been a priority of its licensees since a lot of them are members of the aforementioned industries who take pleasure in antiquated pastimes, not unlike maintaining and restoring historic vehicles. Younger people don't have really have a good reason to join, and several are led astray by the large gap in age. I got in it at 15, and since it gave me a lot of technical background, it led me to a career. Now in my 20's, I'm finding less interest in it seeing it's basically a bunch of people exchanging names over the air, and sending proof of that exchange over the internet. A lot of youth cannot fathom why you need the radio when you have the internet already. There are a million more facets to ham radio than that, but it's hard to see the forest through the trees.

A lot of the advances in ham radio merely tacks on a previous invention to the face of the service, such as this one. It's pretty cool, nobody has done it before and it might be a worthwhile and noble task to apply it to other forms of radio communication, but it - and other recent innovations - kind of lacks the "wow" factor ham radio needs to resurrect itself from it's path to obsolescence.

<comment><USER3> Your argument is equivalent to arguing that because cruise ships exist, surfing isn't fun.

Amateur radio is a way of interacting much more closely with the physics of radio and radio wave propagation than it is simply a method of communication.

Just as a surfer will paddle out and wait for the perfect set to roll in, amateurs look forward to the right combination of sunspots and low atmospheric disturbance, and when it happens it's pure fun, just like catching a wave at the beach.

The mobile phone and satellite networks are big budget designs that have turned into mostly advertising funded infrastructure that provides a small improvement over the entertainment of old fashioned TV. Due to the market power of advertisers and carriers, we even have interruption ads and bandwidth throttling.

Amateur radio is something so much more pure. It's more like camping than simply mass-produced lodging... more like adventure travel than staying at a Marriott.

If you look at ham radio and see deficiencies compared to the mobile and satellite networks, I think you're looking for something very different than what most amateurs have found.

Amateur radio lets you build the simple version of a lot of things...everything from simple antennas, simple direct conversion or superhet receivers, phased systems, etc.

Not only can you build it and use it, you can tinker with it and learn and enjoy every aspect of the experience. Magnus Carlson was interviewed recently and said that his biggest wish is that he could learn chess all over again as a beginner. He's the best and yet the highest form of pure fun he's found is in being a beginner and experiencing the joy of developing a mastery of something rich and complex. Amateur radio lets you dig into the fundamentals... the physics of passive components all the way to the most advanced nuances of beamforming and coding theory.

The social aspect of getting on the air and having a chat or making contact with a new country, etc., ads a social and human layer on top of the technical foundation, which is an altogether different aspect of the hobby.

Contesting and DXing are fast and slow versions of a similar thing. They include both flow state like video games and medium and long term strategy for station building and skill enhancement.

When people ask why I like contesting I tell them "imagine if video games were real". I don't need to pretend I'm an antisocial gangster or member of the military to get a major adrenaline rush and do a flow activity that is using real physics and where my success depends on my mastery of the real physical world, not just some game developer's pretend version.

I think we're at a fascinating crossroads where amateur radio is more appealing than ever... for the following reasons:

\- mobile phones are now just an obvious and ubiquitous piece of tech. Infra- red remote controls used to get people excited when they first came out for channel flipping. The latest and greatest smart phones are still getting that kind of excitement, which is temporary.

\- Now, if my mobile phone doesn't get a good signal inside a restaurant or elevator, it irritates me in the way that a flickering fluorescent bulb irritates me. It's _supposed_ to work. Amateur radio is the opposite. When I hear that bizarre sound of MSK144 as a meteor charges a tiny swath of the ionosphere, suddenly communication exists where none had a moment earlier, and then just as suddenly it's gone... it's a form of magic in the same way that lighting tinders while camping on a damp or windy day feels like magic. In that moment one relates to the many others who have felt that same magic, that same wonderment.

Why do humans surf waves, climb mountains, sail the oceans in small boats, explore jungles and rainforests, and aspire to explore the solar system and universe? There is a human quality of being fascinated with the universe in its raw state and encountering it without whatever luxuries or guard rails are normally used to tame it and make it safe for everyone.

Also, we're currently at the beginning of a renaissance of hardware hacking. You can download Eagle or Circuitmaker (altium) and built all kinds of circuits and boards. There are so many great parts that the mobile industry makes at volume that are useful for all kinds of fun tinkering, but the usefulness and broader business applicability of the kinds of stuff we can build these days goes far beyond what anyone could do during the 1960s and 1970s when many modern hams came of age.

So in a nutshell, RF is cool, radio wave propagation is cool, and building stuff is fun and satisfying. Amateur radio is the most amazing physics video game and it's actually real.

73

<comment><USER4> I really enjoyed reading what you wrote. I've been dancing around the edge of the ham radio community and your post felt like a warm invitation into the realm.

<comment><USER3> Do it. I'm curious what aspects have sounded interesting to you. It's a very welcoming community, and many many sub-communities. Don't hesitate to ask if there's anything you're wondering about.

Glad my post helped nudge you toward a fun and fascinating hobby!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> For anyone who thinks this is the most cutting edge thing happening in amateur radio, there's some much more interesting development in the fields of SDR and signal propagation. Take a look at FT8/JS8call for instance.

</comment><comment><USER3> On the subject of the linked article, I've been wanting to try something like this with SSB audio to see how well the algorithms can understand it. I could provide a broadband SDR IQ recording of lots of SSB audio if anyone wishes to give it a try.

</comment><comment><USER6> CQ Contest, CQ Contest...

</comment><comment><USER7> tl;dr: author describes the use of Google cloud STT on ham radio audio recordings</comment>