Gert
Hi Gert,
I hadn't heard of tip-tilt guiding until I read your first post here. It looks like a really brilliant idea.
I commented on the patent because I think that the guys that had this brilliant idea, if they patented or license it, should be rewarded. When @tech@zwo said that they were going to build one of these devices, I just felt someone had to remind them of possible patents. Many companies ignore rights holders.
For example, the astrometry.net code used by Asiair for plate solving, under its license requires that the source code is made available by anyone that uses it in whole or in part. I haven't seen ZWO make the source code available anywhere yet. This isn't the only licensed product they use for the Asiair.
These open source products used by ZWO involve tens of thousands of hours of work by thousands of contributors. PHD2, Raspbian, INDI, Astrometry.net, Linux, plate solve index files . ZWO gets all this for nothing, at no cost, but ignore the licenses.
These software packages, and the people that developed them, deserve some recognition.
I hope ZWO do the right thing in the future.
Steve