In the last months my DCF77 library gains more and more popularity. Especially outside of Germany where reception conditions are usually poor my library excels. Of course I like the positive feedback a lot.

Another thing that increases are requests of the “wouldn’t it be nice?” type. That is some potential users find that my library is what they want but they lack some specific feature. E.g. port to a different controller, reduced memory footprint or whatever else.

To make it absolutely clear. My library is free as in “free speech” not as in “free beer”. To cite the license:

A program is free software if the program’s users have the four essential freedoms:

• The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose (freedom 0).
• The freedom to study how the program works, and change it so it does your computing as you wish (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
• The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2).
• The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others (freedom 3). By doing this you can give the whole community a chance to benefit from your changes. Access to the source code is a precondition for this.

So how does this relate to the “wouldn’t it be nice?” requests? Well, you can not expect me to work for free for you. The whole library was implemented to see how far I can push it. If your feature strikes my interest I will implement it though. The super filter or the improved auto tune and noise resilence are examples for this. These features have in common that they push the noise tolerance.

If I find it boring remember you have the freedom to implement it. The source code is here GitHub. If you do not want to implement it – that is if it is not worth your time – why should I bother? You may argue that you lack the skill or understanding. If this is the case and you definitely want it you can still hire a developer to implement it for you. You may even hire me.

Having said that. If you want to contribute I will be happy to help you. This applies especially to ports to different CPUs.

Now wouldn’t it be nice if I get some contributions?

Having said that, this month I have two things for my DCF77 library. First an improved auto tune and noise resilence and second the Swiss Army Debug Helper. The first improves the noise tolerance and tuning capabilities to the next level. Now it will also work flawless in the UK and especially in London. Thanks to Ian Castleton for providing me with log files. The second allows easy inspection and investigation of the signal and the library state.