[sugar] Ad-hoc Networking

[Polychronis Ypodimatopoulos]

Carl-Daniel Hailfinger wrote:
> Looking at trac, wireless is one of the biggest sources of bugs and the
> community can hardly do anything about it. Normally, somebody who
> complains can be told to fix the code, but with a closed wireless
> firmware, complaining is the only possible action.
>   

When you say "Looking at trac" do you mean you _really_ looked at trac?

Well, I had a look at trac and found the following bug reports (includes 
open+closed). Of course, this is no account of what percentage are still 
open, or what percentage are blocking and so on, but it may just give us 
an idea of the situation.

What users experience as "network" from an activity's point of view 
(let's call this "network experience") encompasses all of the following 
pieces:

kernel: 286 bugs*
Journal: 232 bugs*
wireless (firmware+driver): 189 bugs
open firmware: 162 bugs*
salut: 71bugs
network manager: 69 bugs
presence service: about 30 bugs
Total bugs relating to "network experience": 189+71+69+30=359

*Not necessarily part of the network experience, but was only listed 
here to provide perspective.

So what part of the bugs that affect your "network experience" are 
_really_ related to the mesh network? "Less" than half! Why "less"? 
Because half (189) involve both the driver+firmware and the part that 
you "cannot fix" is a subset of those.

<cynicism>
You also said "A 'feature' which is an obstacle without visible benefits 
to users/developers has no inherent value". Let's try to follow this 
rule for a moment: the kernel has 286 bug reports and journal has 232. 
Do you suggest abandoning the kernel and substitute with something else 
(say.... "windows" [just a random thought ;-)]). What about Journal?
</cynicism>

Pol


-- 
Polychronis Ypodimatopoulos
Graduate student
Viral Communications
MIT Media Lab
Tel: +1 (617) 459-6058
http://www.mit.edu/~ypod/