| >Would you trust AI generated mesh firmware? It's ridiculous to me that they're concerned about the trustworthiness of AI-generated code when their code quality is so low. They don't even have automated tests and ignore attempts to add them.[0, 1, 2, 3] Last I checked, there's little validity checking in the code, so it's possible to broadcast nonsense values (like GPS coordinates outside of Earth's bounds) and the code happily accepts it. And that's fine if they're just like a scrappy upstart doing their best, but it annoys me to be so high and mighty about their code quality when they don't invest in it. I really want to like MeshCore but I feel like its stewardship makes it hard. The main two people I know running it are Scott Powell and Liam Cottle, both of whom are trying to build businesses on closed-source layers on top of the firmware. I don't think there's anything wrong with an open-core business model (I ran such a business myself), but it creates perverse incentives where the core maintainers try to suppress information about the open-source alternatives and push their own closed-source paid products. Also, MeshCore's recommended broadcast settings for the US are illegal.[4] I emailed the Liam and Scott about this months ago, and they ignored me. [0] https://github.com/meshcore-dev/MeshCore/pull/925 [1] https://github.com/meshcore-dev/MeshCore/issues/1059 [2] https://github.com/meshcore-dev/MeshCore/pull/1065 [3] https://github.com/meshcore-dev/meshcore.js/pull/11 [4] https://github.com/meshcore-dev/MeshCore/issues/945 |
First, I don't know if their interpretation of the rules is correct. For the sake of argument, I'll assume it is. More importantly, most other people in that thread seem to be going along with the idea that it is correct. This is how it reads to me:
Submitter: We're violating the rules and should make this change.
Replier 1: That change would be inconvenient in Seattle so we're not doing it.
Replier 2: It wouldn't work well in Boston, either, so it's a no-go.
Part of me wants to shake them. This isn't 'Nam. There are rules. Whatever you think about the FCC regulations, they're not voluntary, and they certainly don't have an opt-out for "it wouldn't work as well that way". To a first approximation, everyone else using the public airwaves is more or less following the law. If following the law makes your project not work as well, that's your problem. It's on you to fix your project so that it's legal to use.
I'm not one of those old hams who gets hyper cranky about this stuff, but I do understand how they come to be that way. The only reason we can use the spectrum at all is that people are mostly using it legally so that their work isn't interfering with everyone else trying to use the same public resource.