[aprssig] IGate design theory

[Ian_Wade_G3NRW]

On 04/12/2016 17:18, Steve Dimse wrote:
> These aren't theoretical questions, we have dealt with them before. As 
> the few of us involved in the first APRS spec remember, resolving some 
> things required considerable effort and some issues were never 
> resolved. You need a core of technical people and a core of admin 
> people. It is not as easy as writing a few emails!


I will second that. I was Technical Editor of the APRS Specification 
(www.aprs.org/doc/APRS101.PDF), which I rashly volunteered to write some 
18 years ago. Collecting all the facts and opinions of the then small 
number of stakeholders was very much underestimated by all of us, and it 
took a whole year before the more-or-less agreed spec emerged to see the 
light of day in 2000.

It took much more than just "writing a few emails". It also needed much 
banging of heads together to get the job done -- not helped by the 
considerable egos of a couple of participants [1] who took to sulking 
for extended periods if anyone challenged their ideas.

Were we to consider doing a similar job again, it *should* take a much 
shorter time, mainly because communications are so much better now -- as 
I recall, we didn't have Facebook or Twitter in 1999.

[1] ... neither of them being Steve Dimse, I should add!

-- 
73
Ian, G3NRW
g3nrw at g3nrw.net