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4.1.0 Announcement - Selling Yourself Short?

Posted: Thu Mar 26, 2020 4:41 pm
by W4JEW
Hello,

First - congrats to the Pi-Star team on shipping version 4.1.0!!!

Second - I read the announcement on the forum and I think you're selling yourself short. You have a lot to be proud of!

The quote "So whats new - not much honestly, this process was focussed on fixing up the weird issues with WiFi on the Pi 4 mostly, and those seem to be behind us" is only true for those that are looking for what changed between 4.1.0 RC8 and the final release.

In reality, a lot has changed between 3.1.17 and 4.1.0! Why not take this as an opportunity to provide a high-level list of the new features and new versions of underlying services (MMDVMhost, DMRGateway, DStar Gateway, etc.). There's support for using OpenGD77 as an MMDVM for DMR, support D-Star Access Point mode via the Icom Repeater Controller ID-RP2C with DStar Gateway, many new MMDVM boards are officially supported, etc.

Sell it! You're in competition with SharkRF and the Openspot 3 is the shiny new object - until today with the release of Pi-Star 4.1.0. Market the heck out of it! 8-)

Congrats again to everyone that made this happen - including everyone that participated in the testing (whether you released it or not, you helped test 4.1.0 if you were running any version with "RC" in the version name).

73,

-JeffH

Re: 4.1.0 Announcement - Selling Yourself Short?

Posted: Thu Mar 26, 2020 5:25 pm
by G8SEZ
Yes, well done to Andy and the guys.

Always good to have platform competition with any and all others.

Re: 4.1.0 Announcement - Selling Yourself Short?

Posted: Thu Mar 26, 2020 5:50 pm
by MW0MWZ
Yeah I do need to write up a list of the changes, since they are actually numerous between 3.7 and 4.1 - but I guess when I wrote the announcement I was really thinking about what changed from RC8 to release - and in that sense - really not much :)

Right now I am busy releasing a whole stack of new binaries too - so we're about to catch up on a slew of updates too :)

Re: 4.1.0 Announcement - Selling Yourself Short?

Posted: Thu Mar 26, 2020 7:56 pm
by W4JEW
@MW0MWZ

I certainly understand about keeping busy. Pi-Star continues to spread like wildfire, so that's a very good thing!

But I was very serious about competing with the Openspot 3. They are substantially more expensive than buying an MMDVM-based hotspot (whether it runs Pi-Star or something else), yet people are buying them. Their turnkey approach and ease-of-use are very attractive. I still have an OS1 - I won't get rid of it because it has built-in Ethernet.

From the software standpoint, aside from the ease-of-use factor and the addition of DMR/D-Star cross-mode support, I don't think that the Openspot 3 offers anywhere near as many features as Pi-Star does. I know it's a small form-factor, has a battery and whatnot... :roll:

I realize Pi-Star isn't a commercial product and in that regard it doesn't compete. But Pi-Star has become synonymous with "hotspot" even if the hotspot isn't running Pi-Star!

Brand recognition is important - providing a list of features is a huge benefit.

:idea: I'd be willing to bet there are a number of people on the forum that would be willing to help build a list! :idea:

Keep up the great work! Thanks to you and everyone else that contributes to Pi-Star!

-JeffH