To copy a comment from a Github issue [1], comparing the different implementations:

- CRONTO, PM-Code and HCCB and AuthPaper are proprietary. CRONTO has attracted some usage mainly by banks, PM-Code looks like vaporware, AuthPaper seems inactive and HCCB is dead [2].

- CobraKing seems to be a 2012 research project, unmaintained

- HCC2D seems to be mainly academic exploration

Papers and results similar to HCC2D pop up periodically (i.e. [3]), but unfortunately nobody has released any (experimental) source code. It quite frustrating. For example, AuthPaper implemented their solution on top of ZXing, but they never contributed back. They apparently thought they could make some money out of it, but now that their venture is inactive, their ZXing modification is in limbo as well.

From my one-hour research, that makes JAB Code the only actually FOSS implementation of a high capacity 'barcode'. If you know of other (FOSS) implementations, please let me know.

I'm quite surprised JAB Code has existed for so long in a fairly production-ready state without attracting much attention. It deserves much more, looking at the rest of the field.

[1] https://github.com/jabcode/jabcode/issues/2

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Capacity_Color_Barcode#Di...

[3] https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/95c7/fe455a084b0f0ce9923e99...

Thanks for doing this research! I've long dreamed of making a "print to binary to paper" backup system, but all the 2D barcodes I considered had patent encumbrances.

This was the motivation behind what I tried to make: https://github.com/lf94/blots