[isf-wifidog] Re : Re: Re : Re: WifiDog v2 development update?

Richard Lussier richard.lussier at gmail.com
Sam 4 Avr 17:43:07 EDT 2009


Dana,
I think you are expressing something that looks like almost a consensus 
for our needs.
A set of options we can choose from to integrate or not.
We should have a look also at a conversation taking place at 
freethenet.ca at this very moment.
It seems that many communities are looking for a change, and that means 
lots of ressources to make it happens.
Many are looking at the open-mesh / robin project as one of the modules.
That would add the possibility to use mesh networking (ROBIN with Batman 
or OLSR), and also an administrative dashboard (Open-Mesh, or Orangemesh).
Richard

Dana Spiegel wrote:
> Sorry and in (2), by "your CMS" I mean the CMS that's built into  
> WifiDog. It's been one of the biggest issues for us, since its close  
> to impossible for our guys to use, and is completely impossible for  
> our hotspot owners to use. It was very powerful internally, but the UI  
> needs to completely mask all of the sophisticated technology, and at  
> this point, its probably not worth any additional work to make it more  
> usable, since a bunch of other CMSes are available.
>
>
> Dana Spiegel
> Executive Director, NYCwireless
> dana at nycwireless.net
> +1 917 402 0422
>
> -------------------
> NYCwireless is a non-profit organization that advocates for, and  
> enables the growth of free, public wireless networks
> -------------------
>
>
>
> On Apr 4, 2009, at 5:20 PM, Dana Spiegel wrote:
>
>   
>> I think its worthwhile to explain what we are looking for:
>>
>> 1) We don't really care about the gateway software, and would be happy
>> to use anything that can run on Pyramid Linux
>> 2) We don't want to use any of your CMS software. We either want a
>> standard CMS (like Wordpress-I despise drupal, actually), or better
>> our own home-assembled one based on Django components
>> 3) In the longer term, we need a *more usable* administrative tool,
>> especially one that can provide easy to understand reports (which the
>> current one doesn't really provide - I'd be happy to spec this out)
>> 4) We must continue to have authentication, and we need a way to pass
>> the user and their location to our CMS/other software. My
>> understanding is that the faceless mechanism that was the original v2
>> proposal would actually offload this to the CMS directly, and users
>> would really have a login into the wifidog server, but that there'd be
>> a way of externally "authenticating" a user using a callback of sorts,
>> so that we can restrict access to the internet at large until the user
>> actually logs into whatever CMS we run.
>>
>> Beyond this, we've had a lot of headaches with PostgreSQL, and the PHP
>> code is very difficult to adjust without spending a lot of time on the
>> documentation.
>>
>> I think that if we do (4) above, most of my headaches go away, and I
>> can live with things as they are. I'd also like to have some form of
>> REST interface for getting at the node usage data, and a REST
>> interface for querying the real-time activity as well.
>>
>> If we slim down the WifiDog server to be (4) -- with the REST
>> interface we can even get rid of just about any of (3) since this can
>> be built externally -- then we would be incredibly pleased.
>>
>>
>> Dana Spiegel
>> Executive Director, NYCwireless
>> dana at nycwireless.net
>> +1 917 402 0422
>>
>> -------------------
>> NYCwireless is a non-profit organization that advocates for, and
>> enables the growth of free, public wireless networks
>> -------------------
>>
>> On Apr 4, 2009, at 2:25 PM, Gabe Sawhney wrote:
>>
>>     
>>> Hi -- I'm from Wireless Toronto.
>>>
>>> My dream is for us here to be running our network on a platform
>>> that'll accommodate the WRT54G investment that our venue partners  
>>> have
>>> already made, as well as allow us to manage the (probably) ROBIN- 
>>> based
>>> routers that we'll start deploying.  We're a culture-focused group,  
>>> so
>>> portal pages and content -- and consequently, a server -- are
>>> necessary components.  I would like a little more intelligence on the
>>> gateway side, so that users are still able to get online if the  
>>> router
>>> can't find the server.  I'm also interested in stepping away from an
>>> authentication model, and move towards one of (bandwidth) accounting.
>>> (Whereby users are only required to authenticate if they cross a
>>> bandwidth usage threshold.)  This approach would improve the  
>>> usability
>>> of our network (giving us a distinct advantage over commercial  
>>> WISPs),
>>> it would reduce support requests, maybe make building out a mesh
>>> easier, and make our network finally not-totally-annoying for users  
>>> on
>>> mobile devices.
>>>
>>> I picture this dream platform being easier to achieve by building on
>>> top of the soon-to-be-released (this summer?) open-mesh/orangemesh
>>> system, rather than from the existing WifiDog code.  There are other
>>> options I haven't looked into, but it seems to me that the openmesh
>>> project has good momentum, and is a comparatively new system which  
>>> has
>>> been designed with usability on the admin side in mind.  I'm totally
>>> open to other possibilities.  I know others have requirements that  
>>> are
>>> different than ours, but I'd love for us to be collaborating to  
>>> figure
>>> out what are the core features that we could all use and can work
>>> together to build.
>>>
>>> Dana: Are you committed to sticking with wifidog for the festival in
>>> the fall, or would you consider using orangemesh, or something else?
>>>
>>> Gabe
>>>
>>>
>>> On Sat, Apr 4, 2009 at 12:34 PM, Richard Lussier
>>> <richard.lussier at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>       
>>>> bruno.remy at videotron.ca wrote:
>>>>         
>>>>> I'm not a programmer, as Alexis said, but i'would like to share  
>>>>> with
>>>>> you the mind of every programmers involving around Wifidog's
>>>>> development in IleSansFil (Montreal) and ZAP Québec (Quebec city) .
>>>>> This sounds like this :
>>>>>
>>>>> "The time of tracking bugs and/or patch actual Php code is over !
>>>>> It's time consuming, and fixing bugs is a too-small step.
>>>>> The dynamic has changed :
>>>>> Wifidog needs to be rewriting from scratch, with buildt-in or  
>>>>> radius
>>>>> or openId or ldap authentification, and with CMS content (like
>>>>> Wordpress or Drupal).
>>>>> The brainstorming is open ! ;-)"
>>>>>
>>>>> Bruno
>>>>>
>>>>> ----- Message d'origine -----
>>>>> De: Wichert Akkerman <wichert at wiggy.net>
>>>>> Date: Samedi, 4 Avril 2009, 11:28
>>>>> Objet: Re: [isf-wifidog] Re : Re:  WifiDog v2 development update?
>>>>> À: Jean-Philippe Menil <jean-philippe.menil at univ-nantes.fr>
>>>>> Cc: WiFiDog Captive Portal <wifidog at listes.ilesansfil.org>
>>>>>
>>>>>           
>>>>>> Previously Jean-Philippe Menil wrote:
>>>>>>             
>>>>>>> I think the idea of a forum would be great,
>>>>>>> too many people use the bug tracker in wrong way.
>>>>>>> And not so many use the mailing list.
>>>>>>>               
>>>>>> FWIW I find forums painful to use. If wifidog development moves
>>>>>> away
>>>>>> from the mailinglist to a forum most likely I will stop paying
>>>>>> attention. There reasonable services that provide a forum
>>>>>> interface for
>>>>>> mailinglists such as nabble or gmane; perhaps they are  
>>>>>> interesting.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I have no interest in working on the wifidog portal since I use
>>>>>> my own
>>>>>> portal, but I can help with the gateway if needed.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Wichert.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> --
>>>>>> Wichert Akkerman <wichert at wiggy.net>    It is
>>>>>> simple to make things.
>>>>>> http://www.wiggy.net/                   It is hard to make things
>>>>>>             
>>>>> simple.
>>>>>           
>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>> WiFiDog mailing list
>>>>>> WiFiDog at listes.ilesansfil.org
>>>>>> http://listes.ilesansfil.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/wifidog
>>>>>>             
>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> WiFiDog mailing list
>>>>> WiFiDog at listes.ilesansfil.org
>>>>> http://listes.ilesansfil.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/wifidog
>>>>>           
>>>> Hi list,
>>>> I am involved a lot in operations at ISF.
>>>> What Bruno says is what I also understant of the situation in our
>>>> area.
>>>> We are convinced that the modular approach is the way to go, so  
>>>> every
>>>> need can be covered without imposing it to other.
>>>> Also to permit to evolve with more ease.
>>>> There are probably (I am not a coder either) lots of things that are
>>>> great in what has been made, so let's not throw away the baby with
>>>> the
>>>> tub water (a french expression :-) ).
>>>> Sylvain Carle expressed the desire to lead the project among our
>>>> groups
>>>> in Québec area, I would like to ear what he has to say.
>>>> Richard
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> WiFiDog mailing list
>>>> WiFiDog at listes.ilesansfil.org
>>>> http://listes.ilesansfil.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/wifidog
>>>>
>>>>         
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>>>       
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>>     
>
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