[aprssig] APRS Foundation Inc. - Why?

[Steve Dimse]

TAPR has a very basic rule to its operation: "They who build, rule". TAPR helps to support development and provides marketing, but it does not tell the makers and the coders what to do; the builders make the decisions with what to do with their intellectual property.

The innovative years of APRS worked very much on that basis. When I learned Java and thought about how it would be cool to run APRS in a browser, I didn't tell someone to do it, I just did it and then showed it to the world (and boy, was Bob pissed, but that's another story). When Steve Boyle looked at that and said it would be cool to show live data with javAPRS, he didn't tell people to figure out how to do it, he invented the IGate and showed it to the world. When there were IGates with javAPRS pages in Atlanta and San Francisco, I didn't tell them to merge their data, I wrote APRServ and invented the APRS-IS. When Dale Hetherington though APRServ could be better and open source, he didn't complain to me, he wrote aprsd. When I wanted better web data than javAPRS, I wrote findU. When Hessu thought findU should be better, he didn't tell me to do it, he developed aprs.fi <http://aprs.fi/>.

If you think something is wrong with APRS, or if you have a new idea, don't just sit around on the SIG talking about it. Do it, and prove it is worthwhile. If people agree, they will follow. If they don't, maybe the problem is your product and you should improve it.

I really hope the APRS Foundation succeeds, I will do all I can to support it, but at this point in my life that mostly means staying out of the way. I plan to give the foundation access to aprs.org <http://aprs.org/> as soon as they are up and running, and if they succeed I'll transfer full control of the domain to them after a year. Likely aprs.net <http://aprs.net/> will go to them too, at the same time or a bit later.

My hesitancy is based on the fact that I know better than anyone else here how thankless it is to serve the APRS community. I've dedicated a major chunk of my life and well into six figures of my treasure to APRS. I'm skeptical the foundation will get enough people willing to work. I hate to say it, but I believe the foundation will, like other non-builder efforts I've seen here in the last thirty years, ultimately fail from apathy. 

So it is up to you, prove me wrong. Nothing will make me happier. But that will take a bunch of you willing to do hard, thankless work for the community, Emails saying "do this", or "the way it is sucks", etc. accomplish nothing.

Steve K4HG