Re: NEC-LIST: NEC-BSC status and availability

Ron,

I'm glad to hear that your efforts to have NEC-BSC removed from the
list of export-controlled software were successful. But, I'm
concerned that your lab has decided to restrict access to the source
code and apparently limit distribution of NEC-BSC to MS Windows
executables.

1. Have you and your colleagues given any consideration to adopting
the Open Source Development Model for NEC-BSC and releasing the code
under the GNU General Public Licence? (Note that others have found
that the GPL is a *very* effective way to ensure that the copyright
holder doesn't lose control over the package while leveraging the user
community as development partners to the greatest possible degree.)

2. Are you planning to release NEC-BSC executables for any UNIX
platforms, particularly Linux? (With over 7.5 million users
worldwide, many of them scientists and engineers, Linux is rapidly
becoming a popular platform for computational electromagnetics. If
you need someone to maintain or support a Linux (on Intel) distribution
for you, I would be happy to volunteer.)

An aside: I find it very ironic that even as commercial software
developers like IBM, Netscape, Informix, Oracle, and others are
rushing to embrace UNIX (Linux) and the Open Source Development Model,
many government and academic labs are rushing to embrace MS Windows
and a proprietary development model. This is particularly ironic
considering that the Open Source Development Model is best suited to
cases in which the user and development communities overlap to a large
degree, as they clearly do in computational electromagnetics.

Thanks. I have much more to share on this topic, but am interested to
hear some of your thoughts first.

-- 
Dave Michelson     
davem@ee.ubc.ca                http://www3.bc.sympatico.ca/davem/