AMBE owns the implementation of the open standard in their silicon, not the specification the chip was designed to - that was designed by JARL and is an open standard.
As others noted, open source implementations are possible, and can be experimented with today.
Manufacturers seem to prefer to license their AMBE intellectual property rather than re-invent the wheel, but that doesn't mean AMBE chips or Intellectual Property are required to support D-Star.
The take-aways:
- D-Star is an open standard
- AMBE chips are not required to support D-Star
- Open Source Codecs are available to experiment with home brew D-Star
In my opinion, employing an AMBE chip in a home brew design isn't out-of-line with what Amateur Radio is about, it is an expedient to achieve a goal - much like using an off-the-shelf RF deck to build a home-brew radio or amplifier, but I also agree "opinions vary."
Ken, N2VIP
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On Oct 15, 2021, at 15:29, Jerry Gaffke via groups.io <jgaffke@...> wrote:
The D-Star spec might be public, but it all seems rather murky.
As you say, it is implemented by buying something like that proprietary ABME chip,.
FreeDV, on the contrary, has code available that can run on a low end ARM processor.
That seems more in line with what Amateur Radio should be.
Clearly, opinions vary.
