About the time I started working on Free Software, I also founded *No-Code
International* with the goal of eliminating Morse Code exams as a
requirement for the ham radio license, worldwide. This required a change in
international law, the International Telecommunications Treaty of the ITU,
a UN organization, and a corresponding change in the laws of many nations
after that.

The president of TAPR (a digital ham communications organization) said in a
keynote that we were looking at the end of ham radio within 20 years if we
could not do something about the declining licensing of young people. He
said that many of us would preside over the demise of ham radio in our
lifetimes, and we sure didn't like that. I was out to reverse the trend.

People pleaded with me not to "dumb down" Amateur Radio. At ham radio
gatherings, I got cursed out and yelled at. ARRL dispatched an ex-president
of their organization to IARU (International Amateur Radio Union) meetings
with one mission: preserve the Morse Code requirement.

Our side won. Today there are more hams in the US than ever before in
history, and we are no longer expecting the demise of Ham Radio.

Nobody walks up to me and says that things would have been better had I not
interfered. I do get a lot of handshakes and thank-yous from new hams. My
regional ARRL director asks me to come to the podium to be introduced at
our annual meetings each year. I continue to be invited to keynote ham
conferences.

I do seem to hear a lot of the same sentiment as the pro-code guys in this
discussion. And I know where that goes. We didn't dumb anything down, we
just got people to participate. And everything was better for it.

    Thanks

    Bruce

On Wed, Jun 21, 2017 at 8:51 AM, <golinux@???> wrote:

> On 2017-06-21 02:02, Dr. Nikolaus Klepp wrote:
>
>> Am Mittwoch, 21. Juni 2017 schrieb Bruce Perens:
>>
>>> > I agree, that 90% of the people are hapy with limited choice. But as
>>> you
>>> already said, that field is served by apple and M$. No > need for us to
>>> follow down that road. Salvation is not on to be found on the highway :-)
>>>
>>> What you are saying is that you'd willingly leave the world to Apple and
>>> Microsoft rather than have more people run Free Software, if it means you
>>> have to deal with those messy other people. This isn't healthy for Free
>>> Software. Maybe not even healthy for you.
>>>
>>
>> May you fight for the souls of the unbelievers, you have my blessing.
>> But this is not my war.
>>
>> Nik
>>
>
> Mine either. You can't fix 'stupid' with free software. Darwin always
> wins. What does courting 'stupid' with free software accomplish? I don't
> think the answer is as idealistic as some might think. If Mac and Windows
> can control 'stupid', so can free software. And the egos of those seeking
> to lure those users? Well that's classic psych 101. What to say, I'm old
> and cynical . . .
>
> golinux
>
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