[RTTY] Digital Operators Band Plan Committee - Current thoughts and status

[Peter Laws]

On Sat, Mar 29, 2014 at 6:56 PM, Don  W5FKX <w5fkx at cox.net> wrote:


> 6) Finally, all digital modes should use open-source software so that access to interpretive programs is cost-free to all.
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> Having been licensed and active for 60y, I have seen and enjoyed new technology in this hobby and certainly do not want to oppose development in the future; however, this should not be at the expense of current modes enjoyed by many.  The recommendations herein would be closely aligned with band-mode allocations of IARU Region 2, especially for emergency coordination activities.


You're confusing two things here, software development and
communications protocols.

It's perfectly acceptable in my view for a software author to release
only a binary of his work and not the source code.  The author owns
the copyright on that source and he's free to do with that source what
he wants.  If he wants to distribute the source that's his thing -
there are a variety of licenses out there to choose from depending on
how he wants it used by other people.  If he wants to keep it to
himself, he's free to do that.

When it comes to a protocol to communicate between two stations, then
in my view, to be usable on amateur bands, that protocol must be
completely open meaning that the protocol must be published.  I also
take that one step further in that any codec used to encode and decode
messages must also be "open" in the sense that amateurs are able to
create the hardware/software needed to encode and decode messages in a
like manner (assuming they have the skills to do that!).  Any patents
covering ideas used in that codec must be usable by amateurs
royalty-free.

Even though I administer a D-STAR UHF gateway, and have no problem
with D-STAR in principle, DVSI holds the patents needed to create a
codec to encode and decode the digital voice portion of D-STAR.  The
*only* path to D-STAR runs through a DVSI product (Note that APCO P-25
and DMR digital voice have the exact same problem!).

PacTOR, at least version 4 as I understand it, is the same way (sans
DVSI, I presume, but same thing only with SCS).

And to me, that's wrong for amateur radio.



-- 
Peter Laws | N5UWY | plaws plaws net | Travel by Train!