It really confuses me, given both the FCC rules about keeping the airwaves open and unobfuscated, as well as amateur radio being exclusively a community of hobbyists.
There are exceptions of course... The MD-380 firmware, FreeDV, and GNU Radio all being some good examples of open source projects. But it's far from universal, and less common than I'd expect.
1. People who make profit and don't want to lose it to the FOSS crowd 2. People who are ashamed of their code 3. It's status symbol and they 4. They don't realize open source exists 5. They're a corporation which reuses hardware/software/IP from their commercial line of gear (such as D-STAR, Yaesu System Fusion, etc)
N1MM logger [0] fits 3.) - it's the most popular contest logger, it's totally free, absolutely packed with features, and worked on by volunteers, but it's closed source because Tom (N1MM) doesn't want to lose control, but it really seems he enjoys the limelight.
WB8ELK fits into 1.) with regards to his round-the-world high altitude balloon tracker packages [1] He sells his kit for $150, with a BOM cost of $20 and no more than 1000 SLOC. I spoke to him and all he had to say was "he has no plans of open sourcing." I assume it's because it's a good income.
I'm not sure where the WebSDR fits in, but I feel like there's a good reason.
It's written down in the Auteurswet (Dutch): https://wetten.overheid.nl/BWBR0001886/2009-01-01#HoofdstukV...
People have tried scraping broadcasts from his service without permission, and most of the places running software don't have the best internet. Scraping data from the station depends on who is running it at that side, although he did tell me he can't imagine why people wouldn't be okay with it (given it's for a university and not a private corporation).
Creating an open sourced API, although would increase popularity and satisfy use cases, would saturate the host internet and tap the physical limits of the hardware. I would really want some SDR network to exist that is open sourced, but physical limits would be reached pretty soon.
Binary only, but not obfuscated or anything like that, so reverse engineering it isn't too onerous.
http://www.sm5bsz.com/linuxdsp/linrad.htm
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClmNy6VRE1YqOeBHwb3o0Yg/vid...
> Since the intended use of this code involves sending a copy to the client computer, I (PA3FWM) hereby allow making it available unmodified, via my original WebSDR server software, to original WebSDR clients. Other use, including distribution in part or entirety or as part of other software, or reverse engineering, is not allowed without my explicit prior permission.
The server-side code is only available if you email him with plausible reasons you will use it[3]:
> Q: Where can I download the server software?
> A: Nowhere. However, I distribute it (without cost) via e-mail to people who are setting up a publicly accessible server ...
He's well within his rights of course to share his code however he pleases. But it did kill off a fun little idea I had for a Twitter bot pretty quickly since I can't touch the code.
[1]: http://wwwhome.ewi.utwente.nl/~ptdeboer/
[2]: http://websdr.ewi.utwente.nl:8901/websdr-sound.js
[3]: http://websdr.org/faq.html