[Xastir] Radio frequency question from a simpleton

[J. Lance Cotton]

on 7/19/2007 3:40 PM Curt, WE7U said the following:
> I've always heard that you can't protect a protocol, but IANAL.

The typical way of protecting (in some sense) a protocol or standard is to
aggressively protect the copyright of the specification document. The actual
grouping of bits or whatnot that come about in the actual operation of an
electronic protocol or standard cannot be trademarked, copyrighted, or
patented, as far as I am aware.

But any creative "work" can be copyrighted and in fact is automatically
protected by U.S. copyright law upon its creation.

In the case of APRS, the only things Bob can legally protect are:

1) The trademark "APRS" and "APRS - (Amateur|Automatic) (Position|Packet)
Reporting Service"

2) The APRS Spec 1.0 and 1.1, though since those were created by a
committee, I don't know if Bob has exclusive rights to copy that document or
what.

A person *could* create a specification document (of original,
non-plagiarized information) that described a protocol compatible with APRS
and could give it a name other than APRS and it would be perfectly legal,
even if it would upset some folks.

<begin off-topic ranting and blathering>
Recall on APRSSIG the fluff when someone proposed/introduced/mentioned Scott
Miller's OpenTRAC protocol, which conveys much of the same information as
APRS, only organized and regularized a bit differently from APRS. The
central issue (with Bob) was that a different "protocol" would interfere
with APRS if used on the same frequency. The truth is that in the FCC's
eyes, APRS and OpenTRAC are both 20kHz (or thereabouts) wide AFSK FM
modulated data with carrier-sense method of collision avoidance. Even beyond
that minimal commonality, both APRS and OpenTRAC use identical (OSI Model)
Level 2/3 protocol of AX.25 on the air.

There's no possible way that OpenTRAC could interfere with APRS any more
than APRS interferes with other APRS operation.

In the end, it came out that Bob was worried that if people started using
OpenTRAC on 144.39 MHz, then folks using APRS-only programs might not see
all symbols on their screen that the packet-braaaping on the air would indicate.

Note: I don't hate Bob B. or APRS or anything or anyone else. I just get
annoyed by illogical arguments. Live long and prosper \V/

<end off-topic ranting and blathering attrib="please ignore">

-- 
J. Lance Cotton, KJ5O
joe at lightningflash.net
http://kj5o.lightningflash.net
Three Step Plan: 1. Take over the world. 2. Get a lot of cookies. 3. Eat the
cookies.