[aprssig] IGATE message routing bug?

[Pete Loveall AE5PL Lists]

As clarification, www.aprs-is.net is NOT a spec.  It is a web site that states how APRS-IS has been implemented and provides the constraints that were adopted ad hoc over the years to make APRS-IS work.  That is why the statement is made the way it is made.

My software only uses hops but that is not necessarily the best way for everyone to do it nor is it the way everyone has implemented "local".  But as I detailed earlier, the definition of "hops" is a fluid definition due to the multiple implementations over the years of various digipeating methods inclusive of the ambiguities in the "standard" used today.

Please consider the web site as a statement of "what is", not a definitive spec.  There are portions that are definitive (how the login line looks, the q algorithm, what filters are available on restricted ports, etc.) but even those "specs" are really stating "what is".

73,

Pete Loveall AE5PL
pete at ae5pl dot net

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jason KG4WSV
> Sent: Sunday, November 20, 2016 9:48 AM
> To: TAPR APRS Mailing List <aprssig at tapr.org>
> Subject: Re: [aprssig] IGATE message routing bug?
> 
> Someone (or multiple someones?) said, more or less, "the Igate spec is vague,
> but that's OK."  No, it isn't. If it's vague it's not a spec, definitely not a good one.
> 
> 
> APRS is both a family of applications and a network. Flexibility in the
> applications is a good thing - so we can have D700 style radios and 8 bit
> trackers and mapping computer stations all working together, and new
> features developed.
> 
> Vagueness (flexibility?) in the network infrastructure is BAD. Users and
> applications cannot know what to expect, so communications are unreliable. If
> your network is unreliable, it's broken.  If it's unreliable because there are very
> different implementations due to a vague spec, the spec is broken.
> 
> In particular:
> 
> 
> 	the receiving station has been heard within range within a predefined
> time period (range defined as digi hops, distance, or both)
> 
> 
> I take exception to the "or both".  If I can hear it on RF it certainly is, by some
> definition, _local_, totally independent of the existence or even capability of
> generating a position report.