[Thumbgps-devel] Build vs. modify vs. what should we be doing anyway?

[Eric S. Raymond]

Patrick Maupin <pmaupin at gmail.com>:
> On Mon, Mar 12, 2012 at 4:39 PM, Eric S. Raymond <esr at thyrsus.com> wrote:
> > Sorry, my eyes aren't educated enough. (I'm an ex-mathematician; what
> > relatively little I know about electronics design I've picked up by
> > osmosis doing software). What does it say?
> 
> It says:
> 
> I am a very simple board.  My major components are:
> 
> - USB module
> - USB patch antenna
> - Small PL2303 clone (fitting in with your lawsuit theory)
> - Simple 5v -> 3.3v voltage regulator
> - Coin cell battery
> - Diode so as not to drain battery during operation
> - USB connector

Yes, I identified most of these myself.

> There is nothing there that would require 4 layers, and all the
> traces seem to "go somewhere".

That is *exactly* what I thought when I looked at it.  Perhaps I am
less clueless than I feared. :-)

So, this is probably cloneable with relatively little effort, then?

> There doesn't seem to be a real 8 pin SOIC PL2303.
> 
> It almost certainly isn't illegal to clone one of these chips
> (although there might be an infringed patent or two there, that isn't
> necessarily true either).  It probably is illegal to exhort people to
> download the copyrighted Windows PL2303 driver and use it with this.
> Probably not a problem with Linux :-)

At that, PL2303s are cheap.  This page

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=pl2303+usb

clues us that they're probably less than $2 a unit.
-- 
		<a href="http://www.catb.org/~esr/">Eric S. Raymond</a>