IMBE is an open standard, hence follows the FCC guidelines for open access for amatuer radio. Anyone can make a IMBE (APCO25 compliant) radio, as long as they pay the license fee to the IMBE codec owners.
That DStar or whatever might be a different story. I do not know if its propriotry (sp) or not, and if it is, it may not be 100% legal in the US. As I understand it, non-analog formats are suppose to be "in the open" so that everyone can use it. My understanding is that only ICOM has these radio's, so in a sense...
People just need to be aware that there are IMBE varients out there that won't talk to standard IMBE.
Now, the only Motorola repeaters that will play with IMBE are the Quantar series. MSF, Micor, MTR etc DOES NOT DO IT! You are talking about people who are putting up $14,000 repeaters (new) to play with. Some people have been able to get non-IMBE radio's to pass IMBE, but they require EXTENSIVE modifications and don't always work. I would put the number of those radio's at less than 50.
Hey Grem, those wouldn't happen to be Doug's machines would they?