[lug] decoding weather data via radio Was: Time sync w/GPS or radio

[Bear Giles]

Nate Duehr wrote:
> Unless... the magic of Google shows you where someone else has already 
> done all of that work and published it.  Or if Oregon is an open 
> company about such proprietary things as their little weather 
> stations.  Most companies making products that are priced anywhere 
> from 3x to 10x the worth of the components (most Oregon Scientific 
> circuit boards are pretty simple) aren't going to make information 
> easily available about how to intercept their protocol... they'd 
> rather sell you another receiver, and another for the other room, and 
> another for the garage... you get the idea.
I've never fully understood that mindset.  The components might be 
cheap, but relatively few people have the technical expertise to produce 
the hardware, and fewer still have the time and interest.  For the 
occasional person who would abuse the information and go into 
competition, there -are- legal remedies. (E.g., publish the protocol so 
they can't easily claim they reverse-engineered it in a clean room, but 
do so under a non-commercial use without prior authorization license.  
You're probably better off than if they reverse engineered it and claim 
that all trade secrets have been breached and no longer offer legal 
protection.  But IANAL and all that.)

You might still lose a few sales to hobbyists, but will probably gain 
far more from people buying your product precisely because they can tie 
it into their computers.  They may not even have plans to do so, but a 
lot of people may/will find that a sufficient reason to choose one 
product over another.