[aprssig] Pete's NSR idea

[Steve Huston]

On Wed, 22 Jun 2005, K. Mark Caviezel wrote:
> the discussion so far on this topic has been pretty
> civilized, congrats to all who have commented to date.

Hear hear!  One of the first mailing lists I've been on where two "opposing"
views are argued with intelligence, and not resorting to grade school finger
pointing and name calling.

> With some objections noted, seems like a pretty
> interesting thing to try.  As with much of what is
> discussed on this list, there will be opinions as to
> waht may happend, and there is what actually happends.
>  So keep us informed how this works.

Here is a thought, which perhaps someone could explain why (if at all) it
would not work.  I'll show my "open source" attitude here I'm sure :>

Would there be anything stopping someone, and I don't believe there would,
from implementing the NSR method on another frequency?  Perhaps it would be
difficult to get the ball rolling, since many might not see the benefit of
using a different network, but it's been my experience that when two
conflicting (or semi-conflicting) views on a project take roots, sometimes the
best thing to do is for one to go its own way and let the end users decide
with their downloads.  Or, could they coexist on the same network as one
suggested, and if someone ventures into an area that uses the NSR system it
would "just work (tm)"?  Would someone who is configured for a NSR system
still function if they travelled out of that area?  ie, if the default mobile
path was WIDE2-2 for all areas, then NSR digis would do what they want with
the packet, while other digis would treat it as they do (should) currently.

I can't say I'm on one side or another - I've just started with APRS myself.
I can definitely see the benefit of a no-source-routed network having worked
with TCP/IP networks, but I also see the benefit of being able to direct a
packet (if done with intelligence) to a specific area for a specific reason.
Just thought I'd throw in a couple ideas as an outside observer.

-- 
Steve Huston - W2SRH - Unix Sysadmin, Dept. of Astrophysical Sciences
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