The Concept

The concept of dspGuru originated in 1999 as the answer to the question “how can the use of Open Source software be made common among DSP developers?” Open Source software was already in use in the DSP world, but it was not common. Basically, it was “a little here and a little there.” No one had stepped forward to organize it, and no one had created a general platform to propagate it.

The fact that Open Source doesn’t cost anything is both its greatest strength and its greatest weakness: people love to get stuff for free, but if it’s free, there’s no way to pay to create it. Therefore, dspGuru was conceived as a system to generate enough revenue from Open Software to fund its development. The concept was that a web site which featured Open Software could include advertising, which would pay for the costs of publicizing, coordinating and developing Open Source software.

However, as with many things, the concept of dspGuru quickly spun out of control. It was immediately obvious that – just as with Open Source – a lot of good free information on DSP was available, but it also lacked the sort of centralization and coordinated effort which make it maximally useful to DSP developers.

The Mission

Therefore, the mission of dspGuru became clear: dspGuru would be a commercial online community for DSP developers, to allow them to share information and software, and to coordinate activities among them that would be useful to everybody. All this takes time and effort, naturally, (which was probably why nobody has ever tried it before), so, like other online communities and free web-based services, dspGuru would use advertising and other sources of revenue to fund its efforts.

Your Help

dspGuru is both a “business” and a “community service.” Success as a business is closely tied to success as a community service. Like all community services, we can’t be successful without the help and support of the community. Our job is to do the organizing, coordinating, and the publishing, but your donations of information, articles and software are absolutely essential to making dspGuru a success for you, for the community, and for us.

Here’s how you can help: