[Cerowrt-devel] So how far behind is the embedded router world, still?

[dpreed at deepplum.com]

In some ways, the quickness is good, beats the old days of ATT monopoly never innovating except over 10 year incremental cycles.

But Linux isn't capable of quick innovation. It's too overcomplicated. Too many parts barely fit together, or don't. Huge config files encoding same info in inconsistent ways. Poor cross compilation architecture, if there is one at all. Days long build cycles.

Then throw in UEFI which has to be built on Windows to get it right.

Not a system that can chase innovation of the small kind. Hardware is now like software in how varied it can be. But software is no longer about flexibility of abstraction. Every Linux is a Time Sharing System.


-----Original Message-----
From: "Joel Wirāmu Pauling" <joel at aenertia.net>
Sent: Thu, Jul 26, 2018 at 4:34 pm
To: "Dave Taht" <dave.taht at gmail.com>
Cc: "Dave Taht" <dave.taht at gmail.com>, "Jonathan Morton" <chromatix99 at gmail.com>, cerowrt-devel at lists.bufferbloat.net
Subject: Re: [Cerowrt-devel] So how far behind is the embedded router world, still?

Just a note - a lot of this mess is due to China's rapid dev cycles and
race to the bottom on cost vs supply.

Generally a fab house who is in turn contracted by an OEM in China will
have 1 maybe 2 engineers who will do the initial low level C bits required
for a product/board. They get it working on whatever build environment they
have at hand and chuck it over the fence to product unit who ship it. Then
moving onto the next contract never to be seen from again.


-Joel


On 27 July 2018 at 08:15, Dave Taht  wrote:

> On Thu, Jul 26, 2018 at 9:48 AM dpreed at deepplum.com 
> wrote:
> >
> > How would one get Linux Foundation to raise money to sponsor a router
> software initiative?
>
> We tried. Personally, having bled out mentally and financially more
> than once, I am not up to trying again. They don't return our calls
> anymore.
>
> > I can see that all the current network product OEMs might mass up to
> kill it or make it fail. Kind of like coreboot vs. UEFI.
> >
> > But maybe Facebook or Amazon or Google - dedicated white-box fan
> companies - might do it. Or maybe there's a Chinese funding source.
>
> Well, try to sort through
> https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesnycouncil/2018/07/26/
> why-you-should-start-looking-at-googles-flutter-and-
> fuchsia-now/#795943a6a309
>
> As for china, sure, that would be great. Europe, sure. I think china
> has a huge incentive to get into making better firmware in
> collaboration with europe. As for america...
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: "Jonathan Morton" 
> > Sent: Thursday, July 26, 2018 10:13am
> > To: "Mikael Abrahamsson" 
> > Cc: cerowrt-devel at lists.bufferbloat.net
> > Subject: Re: [Cerowrt-devel] So how fHow wouar behind is the embedded
> router world, still?
> >
> > > On 26 Jul, 2018, at 11:53 am, Mikael Abrahamsson 
> wrote:
> > >
> > > they seem to live in a world where you take a linux kernel that's
> announced as LTS (in the best of worlds), work on that for 1-2 years during
> which you release an SDK, which then the device manufacturers will take and
> start putting their solutions on, which takes another 1-2 years before it
> reaches customers.
> >
> > This in itself sounds like a colossal waste of developer man-hours.
> Which really just serves to underline how clueless CPE vendors are - about
> their core business, no less.
> >
> > They obviously have a lot more resources than we do.  What could *we* do
> with that level of funding and organisation?  Take six months, and put out
> a router that *doesn't* suck for a change!
> >
> >  - Jonathan Morton
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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> > Cerowrt-devel at lists.bufferbloat.net
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> >
> >
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>
>
> --
>
> Dave Täht
> CEO, TekLibre, LLC
> http://www.teklibre.com
> Tel: 1-669-226-2619
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