[isf-wifidog] Recap of recent discussion for the next version of wifidog

Sylvain Carle scarle at praizedmedia.com
Dim 19 Avr 22:01:44 EDT 2009


As some of you already know, I have been involved in the last month in 
drafting a plan for the next version of wifidog, dubbed WifiDog TNG (the 
next generation).

I have been organizing a few conference calls with other wifi orgs (Zap 
Québec, Zap Sherbrooke and other upcoming ZAPs) as well as with NYC 
Wireless and Wireless Toronto (last friday) to collect as much as input 
as possible and gather consensus for future direction. I also had good 
one-on-one chats with Benoit Grégoire, François Proulx and the current 
(and past) ISF board members. This is is first draft of the objectives 
for wifidog 2.0

A few principles first. This is to be a process as inclusive as 
possible, it's open for contribution to any able and willing developer. 
It will be organized from the current dev.wifidog.org Trac ticket system 
and wiki (see a copy of this email at http://dev.wifidog.org/wiki/TNG)

There is a deadline for the first 2.0 release in August as several 
groups will need the new features for specific fall projects. As such, 
some ideas might be great but not consider for inclusion in the first 
release. A schedule for point releases (2.1, 2.2, etc) shall be 
discussed here but the goal is to be consistent with stable and 
supported releases and an "edge" version.

Goal : make wifidog easier to integrate with other related opensource 
projects.

* Be backward compatible and build on the excellent core we already have
* Have to version, one "mini" for limited capacity hardware (as used in 
many existing installations worldwide, WRTG et al) and one "maxi" for 
more modern hardware (with much more processing power + memory)
* Target platform: OpenWRT (Pyramid Linux as #2 and Sky OS as possible 
#3, we should also look at a deb/ubuntu packaging maybe)
* Better reporting + integration with external graphing/reporting tools
* Consolidate security patches and new ROM images
* Support several modes: Authentification, Agreement et Content+Redirect
* Development of a geolocation API for session/content/context
* Integration with open source CMS for portal pages (via plugins): 
Wordpress is first candidate (Drupal and Pylons are considered)
* Doc. the stack : Auth Server (hub), Gateway (node) and CMS (api)
* Developing "Zap in a Box" for new cities/regions (make it easier to 
start a new wireless orgs)
* Exploration of MESH and other hardware

We are doing a little hackfest at Arts Café in Montreal this wednesday 
(22nd) @ 18h30 to continue this process.

This is a long email with lots of details, but I wanted to kickstart 
this process as much as possible with the tremendous community we have 
here. Comments, suggestions and questions are of course more than 
welcomed here and on the wiki.

--
Sylvain Carle
Board Member of ISF and
Herder of Open Source Cats (I mean Dogs)!



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