[aprssig] IGATE message routing bug?

[Steve Dimse]

> On Nov 16, 2016, at 3:00 AM, Jim Alles <kb3tbx at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>  I do intend to disrupt the "but we've always done it this way" thinking, however.

Keep in mind is why this thinking exists. There is no central authority that can dictate change. In the case of a change in the way IGates operate this means convincing a dozen or more IGate authors to update their software, and hundreds of IGate operators to upgrade. This is hard even without the complication that one of the most popular IGate packages hasn't been updated in years because of the author's death.

A good idea can, over time, come to be widely implemented. Changes that require hardware changes like the various proposals that would obsolete D7/00s are especially difficult. Standardization for standardization sake is doomed to failure in the APRS community, both because of this inertia and because situations vary widely within the APRS community.

There certainly is ambiguity in the spec documents. Some of this is accidental and some of it intentional. Accidental because documentation is something most of us hate and spend little time on. Even during the big push of a dozen people that created the APRS spec document real life took many of as away at different times as we worked our way through each of the formats, so plenty was missed. Intentional because either the document dictates various ways something was already be done, or because we see different ways it could be done, and want individuals to have the right to decide which is best for them.

APRS is, above all, a practical system; keep in mind the practical issues of anything you consider proposing.

Steve K4HG