Fwd: OLPC Laptop - some suggestions for the software

[David Woodhouse]

On Wed, 2006-12-20 at 15:05 +0100, Ivan Krstić wrote:
> David Woodhouse wrote:
> > Except for the wireless, where we conveniently ignore our commitment to
> > open source.
> 
> Can we let that dead horse rest already? 

By all means. But let's not pretend it's still alive either, which your
previous mail seemed to be doing.

> 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.

That's a much better reply to Thomas' original mail than what you
previously said; thanks for the clarification.

> 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.

I wouldn't ever suggest that normal dæmons would be viable; you're right
that they wouldn't stand a chance. There's a _big_ difference between
that and claiming it's actually immutable in hardware though.

Again, your clarification provides a much better answer than your
previous mail. Thanks.

-- 
dwmw2