Open Source rules for INDI and EKOS

kakugan

Does ZWO ASI Air really use stolen INDI and EKOS software and violate the open source agreement? This
was an accusation made in a youtube video by "Ancient Photons". This would be a serious violation of copyright
law if true. Using open source code generally requires that the product also be open source.
thanks for clarifying.
Mark Wilson

AstroDude42

kakugan i can't tell anything about that as i have no other relation to ZWO other than i am an owner of several of their products. But i'd like to know: are you referring to the owner of the ancientphotonsastro-dot-com domain? I'm just curious which video contains that claim (this person has only two videos at all on YT about processing images in PI) and on his equipment page he clearly shows that he owns an AA+ among other ZWO devices. I wonder why someone makes such a bold claim against a manufacturer but still buys their equipment (and in case of the AA+ a recent addition to its product line). Personally, i take such statements under these conditions with a grain of salt. Ymmv, though.

But to make it clear: if that claim would be true, this would be definitely a no-go. But i do not expect anyone (not even ZWO) to admit publicly, if it were the case.

Olli

AstroDude42

AstroDude42 i need to clarify: the person i mentioned in the second post of this thread is not the person that published the video containing the accusations. Both use „ancient photons“ in their YT profile name. Sorry for any inconvenience.

Olli

franco

indiserver and the indi_* telescope control drivers are used unmodified in the ASAir, which is not a LGPL license violation, at least not now that they are given credit in the latest version of the ASIAir app. Not sure which bits of Ekos you think may have been stolen?

kakugan

The youtube video in which the claim was made is:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3uOxU2dJhSM

As franco stated, using an unmodified LGPL library is not a violation. I wasn't making any accusations, just following up on the accusations made by "Ancient Photons". My motivation is that I love linux and other open source software, I think that in general, open source results in better software ("With many eyes, all bugs are shallow"), and I think we should all act to protect the open source license process. I would hope that ZWO will be transparent about their use of open source libraries, and adhere both to the spirit and letter of the law.

hypee

It looks to me like you do have the guide tab. If I remember correctly (it's been a week or so) it should be, on the Ekos window (not the INDI control panel) the red and white target. That's written a bit ambiguously in the documentation so I can see how you'd think that

That could also be the aligning tab. Not 100% sure. Otherwise I think it's a bug in Ekos.

Another option is that you might have to configure the focal length of the guide scope and primary scope in the Ekos profile, down at the bottom, in order for it to recognize the guiding stuff.