W0CHP.net

As a brief follow-up to part 1 of my freeloading complainers article, I had quite the experience last night to share…

It was new year’s night, 2021, and I was attending the Friday night TGIF Net on the TGIF Network. They are in the process of migrating their server/platform to an entirely new one. So a special guest of the Net, was Ty, KG5RK, a wonderful human being, and the main developer and programmer for the entire network.

I have been intimately involved with Free/Open Source Software (“F/OSS”) for a very long time. Not just as a user, but as an evangelist, architect in massive-scale corporate environments, and most importantly, as a contributor and developer. The fascinating thing to me, is how ham radio and F/OSS are so closely aligned. They both embrace openness, community, camaraderie, experimentation, freedom, hacking, home-brew/DIY, and so much more. Or at least, they used to.