Using serial ports for binary protocols on UN*X/Linux

It's been a very long time since I've actually been touching any application code using serial RS-232 ports on Linux or similar OS's. If I think more about it, it's probably about a decade now.

So in the last couple of days I was starting a program called bs11-config, a small command line tool for initial configuration of the BS-11 GSM BTS, part of the OpenBSC project.

The longest part of that program was actually not the code for the program itself, but rather finding out how to properly configure the serial port in a way that it really is completely raw, i.e. doesn't meddle with any of the rx or tx bytes in any possible way. It's always amazing how baroque some of the traditional UN*X interfaces are - particularly something like serial ports which traditionally have only been used to transport ASCII characters to serial (hardware) terminals, modems or similar equipment.

In any case, it's now working just fine. No more need for any proprietary 16bit windows programs such as LMT (local maintenance terminal) for doing the initial configuration of a BS-11. What a relief.

What I found incredibly useful was the Serial Programming Guide for POSIX Operating Systems. Thanks, Mike!

I have back my old car

In late 2008, I 'sold' my old car (Opel Vectra) to a friend from the local Berlin CCC (starbug) for the symbolic price of 1 EUR. I didn't mind, since the car was not worth all that much, and it was for a friend.

As it turns out, starbug immediately said "if you need it back at any given time, just let me know". I never thought that case would happen, but due to recent events it actually happened.

So now I have my old car back, which makes the feeling of the Golf even more surreal. Owned a car for about 3 months of which I was probably travelling at least two, then suddenly lost it, and am back with the old car. Feels a bit like I'm back in the past, rewinding back to times that one thought were gone.

In any case, big thanks starbug!

German radio station to talk with me about GPL Violations

Tomorrow at 2pm CET, I'll have a live interview in the Breitband show at the nation wide Deutschlandradio station. The show covers the topic "Open Source and Business", and they want to talk to me for a couple of minutes about the side-effects of businesses getting involved with copyleft-style FOSS without respecting the rules as put forward by the licenses.