[wsfii-discuss] Outbreak of mesh, in the wild

Wed May 14 02:59:23 UTC 2008

http://techreport.com/discussions.x/14534

The blog entry is by someone who has been working on delivering VoIP as an attractor for a rural mountain-region network. According to a report in Slashdot:

http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/05/13/1225259&from=rss

"A blogger on The Tech Report details his research and testing of wireless voice communication options for remote mountainous villages
in rural undeveloped areas. The home-built project involves open-source
software, low-cost wireless routers, solar power, mesh networking,
unlicensed radio frequencies and VoIP technology. Although his research began several months ago,
he has concluded the first stage of testing and is preparing to move
near one of the sites where he hopes to eventually install the final
functional network. Anyone with experience or ideas on the subject is
invited to offer input and advice."

What is great about a movement like WSFII is that it does not take 'members' to make something happen, but people are ready when somebody is doing something interesting, or has something to offer, or needs help.

The blogger mentions awareness (well-referenced) of many of the networks who contribute to these discussions, and invites help.

Vickram
http://communicall.wordpress.com
http://vvcrishna.wordpress.com

----- Original Message ----
From: jeff buderer <jeff at onevillagefoundation.org>
To: Discuss list on the World Summit on Free Information Infrastructure <wsfii-discuss at lists.okfn.org>
Cc: Open Hardware <open-hw at lists.openpattern.org>
Sent: Sunday, 11 May, 2008 6:36:42 PM
Subject: Re: [wsfii-discuss] ultraportable, they say

 Vickram,

Its does seem from recent events that ASUS is engaging people in the
open source community and is the most receptive to our efforts as
compared to other corporate efforts. My view is that this is an
encouraging step.

However how much this translates into actual Open Hardware achievements
is to a large extent determined by how concerns about IP are resolved
so that corporations dont feel they are risking their IP and financial
future by going the Open Hardware route.

So I feel you are putting the onus on the manufacturers rather than
those lobbying for those changes. I would not put the onus on the
companies to put forward real changes without assurances that these
efforts will not compromise their bottom line.

As I understand it Vic Hayes effort in leading the wifi effort was to a
larger degree about communications and finding a common understanding
for universal standards through out the industry that all the
participants could agree on. 

Open Hardware should be designed with similar considerations:

	1. clear listing of advantages for companies such as profitability
and innovation

	2. benefits to consumers
	3. what is the compelling reason for Open Hardware
	4. what is the guidelines for (corporate) participation, for product
designation as Open Hardware and also process for input from the
grassroots in this process

Jeff Buderer
oneVillage Foundation

http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/285026428/

Ross Rubin writes on open source based devices, including the EEE PC.
Astonishingly (only because it has happened so quickly) relatively
powerful hardware devices are emerging rapidly, portables at what used
to be desktop pricing, loaded with 'tuned' FOSS OSes. Of course, XO
deserves credit for focusing the world's attention on this gap, against
the many other projects that attempted to do the same thing before (the
Jhai, Simputer, Sirius, ... so many more). I totally doubt any
manufacturer would otherwise have put any effort into resolving the gap
between perceived and real performance specs. 

As I expected (and of course most people on these lists know already,
so I am just belabouring the point), the sort of software development
needed to make a device work 'out of the box' was actually much easier
to kick off in the non-proprietary world. 

Will this be repeated with hardware? The EEE and its more expensive
recent sidekick (I forget the name) have not come out of open design
efforts, nor have most of the others. To a large extent, this has been
due to restrictions from manufacturers of components, I think. I don't
know how ready the manufacturing wolrd is now, to encourage this
approach to design. 

Vickram
http://communicall.wordpress.com
http://vvcrishna.wordpress.com 

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