Can I take exception to a few of the statements made?

I care about bandwidth... If I'm at the observatory or it's in the back yard, maybe not so much and remote desktop may work. If I am running to a remote observatory serviced by a microwave link at $30/month vs a broadband link at $150/month, I care. I do mostly speckle so each data cube is about 1 GB. I can do one every 6-10 minutes... I almost have to use a NAS to store raw data at the observatory and reduce the data there (1000:1 reduction in size or more, already programmed into the GPU on a Jetson TK1). To arbitrarily say bandwidth/date usage doesn't matter is simply wrong. It even matters for places like Kit Peak and have the data on a jump drive to prove it.

ASCOM- Let's face it, it's legacy from the RS232 world. The world has changed, plug and play, configuration apps, posted "Open" interfaces and so on. I can plug in my GigE Flea3 camera anyplace on my network, run a config app and it finds it. One click and the software is set up... Auto config and/or configuration help would be to my mind the minimum needed for a new system. Yes, this can be left to the instrument makers, but shouldn't it be called out as an expectation?

From what I can tell, adding a data field to ASCOM will cause the known universe to implode (just making a point). The word "anarchy" was applied when I asked about self-declaration. I don't think any developer or user can predict what will be of interest or needed in 5 years, apparently others do. So there is, IMHO, a need within the interface to add instrument types, data types and commands. I wanted to add an instrument selector, which I did by calling it a filter wheel, though I see there is one in INDI. This worked but is confusing to those looking on. Now I want an automated ADC (Atmospheric Dispersion Correction)... how do I do that: via scripting with Poth, easy in INDI (via snoop)?

The added data field was for my observatory controller and you have no idea what I want to report from my observatory or when... by adding the data type, units, name limits and actions, the field could be added on the fly to any application with minimal effort, the application not even knowing the relevance: real, Dec current, ma, -300 , 300, warn. This doesn't feel like anarchy .

There's one other minor fly in the ointment. Yes it's minor. To reuse the ASCOM driver on an ALPACA device means running windows on the device... anyone see a problem with that? It just means the interface will need to be rewritten for the embedded web sever and the ASCOM example code will be helpful. Just not the slam dunk initially thought.

So I like the fact ALPACA will give the instruments a network based interface that is OS agnostic, huge plus. It's a bit too archaic and closed for my tastes but a major step forward for ASCOM. It will be interesting to see how the instrument makers respond.

Anyone see IBM's "Cognative Telescope Network" information? I'm probably not a fan, but there are some interesting points.

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