[ax25-layer2] even more thoughts

[Jeff King]

Hi Jason.

On Tue, 20 Sep 2005 12:08:51 -0500, Jason Winningham wrote:

>
>First, users and change: "backwards compatibility forever" will
>result in kludges and problems. 

Yeap, and the new stuff is >>SO<< dirt cheap these days, it just foolish economy to cling to 20 year old TNC's.


>It's sometimes painful, but sooner or later you have to abandon a
>platform (protocol, way of doing things, etc) and grow. 

That is what ICOM's D-Star did. Check out their insert in QST this month. FEC and gMSK made it into their protocol. And, they say it is even open source. 

>For the most part, users will not change unless they are
>pushed. Hard.  With sharp sticks.  Or cattle prods.  Or horse whips.

Or, they have a reason to. Look how quickly PSK31 displaced RTTY for causal chit chat on HF digital. Just some guy in England hacking on a EVM56 came up with that.

But, that takes determination and patience. Your not going to be an overnight APRS rock star if your new method goes against the collective. But if it offers an advantage, chances are it will eventually be adopted, even without sharp sticks or medication.

Looking at the mess that is here, I would say the best first step would be to get AX.25 V2.2 adopted and develop an enforcement mechanism. Your never going to make the APRS boys happy, as they can't even manage their own affairs. Which is not to say ignore them, but history tells us they will do whatever they want.