Fwd: OLPC Laptop - some suggestions for the software

[Ivan Krstić]

David Woodhouse wrote:
> Except for the wireless, where we conveniently ignore our commitment to
> open source.

Can we let that dead horse rest already? The wifi firmware situation is
a pain in our collective butts. Having had to weigh the user experience
we wish to deliver, and find crucial to the project's educational goals,
against our commitment to software freedom, was a bitter pill to swallow
for the entire core team, and was discussed endlessly in investigation
of other options. There weren't any. Claiming that our decision was in
any sense "convenient" is bollocks, insulting, and out of touch with
reality.

OLPC is about *education*, not about laptops. That's not a marketing
phrase. It's a defining statement about the entire project and its
underpinnings. And so on the rare and unfortunate occasions, like with
the firmware, that the two collide -- education wins. Certes, it must!

> No, the mesh routing is software. It's software which runs on the ARM
> CPU in the wireless chip rather than on the host CPU, but it's software
> nonetheless.

My point was that the routing executes on dedicated hardware, not that
it runs in silicon. But this is picking nits, because the dedicated ARM
is such an ultra-constrained environment that there's no open
source/free routing firmware that even functions in such conditions that
we know of, and certainly standard routing daemons aimed for execution
on normal CPUs don't stand a chance. Want an entry in our hall of fame?
Prove me wrong.

-- 
Ivan Krstić <krstic at solarsail.hcs.harvard.edu> | GPG: 0x147C722D