OpenDSP: Open Software for Digital Signal Processing

OpenDSP (sm) is dspGuru's initiative to promote the use of "open" software within the DSP development community. DSP developers already use open software, of course, but it can be hard to find, and often it does not always meet developers needs in a systematic way. We hope to change all that.

The Initiative

Our OpenDSP initiative consists of three basic elements:

• To catalog existing OpenDSP software.
• To provide promotional support for OpenDSP projects. dspGuru will promote and provide free web space for selected OpenDSP projects.
• To coordinate OpenDSP efforts among software developers. Currently, open software development in DSP consists of "a little here and a little there". We would like to help coordinate a more comprehensive structure of open software for DSP. Put another way, we would like to help you find and fill the holes.

Definition of OpenDSP

OpenDSP software meets at least two simple requirements:

1. It must be "Open", that is, the source code must be publicly available online.
2. It must be "DSP", that is, it must be directly useful in Digital Signal Processing, either as an application (software that's part of a DSP system) or as a tool (software that helps develop a DSP system).

Also, in some cases we may include "freeware" (which is "free" but not "open") on an "honorary mention" basis.

Software Licenses

Since most DSP development has a commercial purpose, we encourage OpenDSP developers to use licenses which easily allow commercial use of their OpenDSP code. In that vein, we highly recommend that OpenDSP contributors use our own Wide Open License (WOL), which is focused on making the legal issues of open software nice and easy for authors, users, and publishers alike.

A Little Philosophy

With our OpenDSP initiative, we hope to increase the use of open software within the DSP development community, but, clearly, closed/commercial software will continue to play an important role in DSP development. (In fact, dspGuru's parent company, Iowegian International Corporation, sells closed software commercially.) Therefore, we do not view closed software as being "bad" or "evil" in any way; we simply view an increase in the use and availability of open, free software for DSP, and an increase in cooperation among DSP software developers, as being something which can benefit a large number of DSP'ers worldwide.

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