[aprssig] WB4APR SK

[Weston Bustraan]

"infinitely extensible by its very design with all applications instantly
supported"

As a developer, this is mildly amusing to me. Sure, the data format might
be designed so that one can add additional data to a packet without
breaking existing apps, but that doesn't mean that those applications know
what to do with the additional data.

Recently, I took a look at whether I should add OpenTRAC support to QTH.app
and the question I left with was, why? I didn't see much information that
an OpenTrac packet can carry that we're not already communicating via APRS
packets. OpenTRAC has an uphill battle; there is an entire ecosystem built
around APRS, so there has to be a compelling reason for radio
manufacturers, software developers, tracker builders, and Internet
infrastructure to change from APRS.

I can say that it was not easy to navigate the many exceptions and and
oddities in the APRS 1.0.1 spec when implementing a parser, and OpenTRAC
seems much more consistent, but the OpenTRAC spec does not seem to be fully
complete. For example, I would expect that any new protocol that would
supplant APRS would be supporting a UTF-8 character set instead of just
ASCII.

I can't find any plan for how the creators planned to roll OpenTRAC out.
What does infrastructure look like? Is this intended to be transmitted on
the standard APRS frequency? Or another frequency? So many questions.

Don't get me wrong; I'm willing to code in support for a new system, but I
would like to see a lot more activity in that space.

73s Wes Bustraan W8WJB


On Fri, Feb 11, 2022 at 6:27 PM Gregg Wonderly <gregg at wonderly.org> wrote:

> I would much rather the attention be put into a much richer yet simpler
> design such as OpenTrac!  It is so much more ready to be used by tiny
> systems for simple as well as complex tasks and becomes infinitely
> extensible by its very design with all applications instantly supported!
>
> Gregg Wonderly
> W5GGW
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> > On Feb 9, 2022, at 11:46 AM, steve at dimse.com wrote:
> >
> > 
> >
> >> On Feb 9, 2022, at 12:06 PM, R Kirk <isobar at verizon.net> wrote:
> >>
> >> Maybe this is time to let APRS decline gracefully.
> >
> > I hope not, but it is certainly a possibility. And it will happen if new
> leadership does not emerge.
> >
> > Steve K4HG
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > aprssig mailing list
> > aprssig at lists.tapr.org
> > http://lists.tapr.org/mailman/listinfo/aprssig_lists.tapr.org
>
> _______________________________________________
> aprssig mailing list
> aprssig at lists.tapr.org
> http://lists.tapr.org/mailman/listinfo/aprssig_lists.tapr.org
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.tapr.org/pipermail/aprssig_lists.tapr.org/attachments/20220211/f893af81/attachment.html>