On Wed, 2011-04-27 at 09:00 -0500, Gregg Wonderly wrote: > This is one of those experimentation moments. Not everyone is happy with > where > it is at, but without some more participation, those experimenting now will > be > the ones setting the standards, and if you are not happy with those results, > it > will be your fault not theirs, because you chose not to participate.
I'd like to point out that it's difficult, at best, to participate when you can't "roll your own". There are many codecs available out there today that don't require purchasing a license to use. The biggest problem right now is that D-Star isn't backward compatible or you could implement one of those freely-licensed codecs now and let people design their own implementation. Packet radio, however, is a good example of an open project. AX25 is the basis for packet radio and since the specification was released it allowed anyone to design and develop their own software and hardware systems. Take a subset of that project, APRS, and you'll see this even more. How many software clients are out there that use the APRS specification as a means to communicate with other APRS users? Kenwood, Byonics, and Yaesu, among others, have all made hardware devices utilizing the APRS and AX25 open specifications and more will come. Open is better and until all the pieces are freely available you won't catch one of these devices on my side. --Eric W4OTN _______________________________________________ Sent via [email protected]. Opinions expressed are those of the author. Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! Subscription settings: http://amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb
