[isf-wifidog] update from Saturday and continuing discussion of v2 WAS: Re: WifiDog v2 development update?

[Michael Lenczner]

Hello all,

On Sun, Apr 5, 2009 at 1:52 AM, wlanmac <wlan at mac.com> wrote:
> Yes, RADIUS is powerful and ideal for access provisioning. Implementing
> your 'business logic' in RADIUS also has the benefit of being usable
> with multiple types of access controllers, using some standard (WISPr)
> or vendor specific attributes. Though, RADIUS doesn't make any
> guarantees about the features of the access controller.
>
> This could be a turning point for the WiFiDog project. As a portal
> project, I'm guessing that the WiFiDog community might break up into
> smaller projects (already happening, it seems) as it is VERY difficult
> to find a web development platform/framework that everyone is happy
> with. It also sounds like people are willing to dump the v1 web
> framework, which will no doubt further break up the community unless
> there is a clean upgrade procedure. This is bad news for any open-source
> project that struggles to maintain their community and attract more
> contributors (especially developers)...
>
> My two cents for the project:
>
> - To keep WiFiDog an access controller AND portal project, WiFiDog
> should be more active in defining the "protocol" and development of the
> gateway. The project should encourage and embrace the use of multiple
> kinds of portals and web frameworks - don't push away those who break
> away from the portal.
>
> - To turn WiFiDog into a portal project, then don't necessarily keep the
> gateway portion when there are other options available which can do more
> things. Even if it means adding the WiFiDog "protocol" to something like
> Chilli, at least you don't have to reinvent the wheel in terms of basic
> access controller features.
>
> David
>
>
<snip>


Update on the weekend meeting and background context:

So there was a meeting last saturday in Sherbrooke where 6-7 community
wireless groups from Quebec and Ontario (about 20 people) got together
and discussed Wifidog and something we're calling the ZAP Stack.

(Several of the community wireless groups in Quebec have taken the
label ZAP Cityname with ZAP refering to Zone d'Acces Public (Public
Access Zone). )

The ZAP stack is the entire ecosystem of tools needed to run a
community wireless group of the wifidog model.  There is a focus on
hotspots, with a serious intention of including mesh capability in the
near future.  All of the groups use Wifidog.  We're looking at using
the term "ZAP Stack" to differentiate between Wifidog and the overal
technical toolset needed by a Community Wireless Network.  ZAPStack
could be easily called CWNStack.

The groups present this weekend represented a total of more than 500
hotspots and 150,000 users, and several of them have recently received
government funding to extend their operations.

Sylvain Carle led the day's discussion and will be coordinating the
contributions of the Quebec groups to the creation of a stack of
software (ZAP Stack) that addresses their needs.  This stack involves
Wifidog but the exact relation of the technologies to Wifidog and the
specific role of Wifidog is still to be determined.

</weekend update>

I found this thread (WifiDog v2) really interesting and informative.
I hope we can continue the discussion.

To enable the larger discussion of what our (the Wifidog community)
individual / collective needs are and how they fit in with wifidog
development Gabe and I created a page listing some of the interesting
/ relevant tools in the CWN space.  Richard added to it and David
added and fixed it up. (Thanks David!).  And I've taken some content
from this thread and added it to the Wifidog TNG page so that it isn't
lost. (http://dev.wifidog.org/wiki/TNG)

Personally I'm trying to understand the relationship between Radius
and Wifidog, and if Chillispot / CoovaChilli and or Radius could have
a role to play in addressing some of our needs for better network and
user management at our hotspots (ergo including the above text.  Any
thoughts, pointers would be helpful.  I know that there are others
that understand the pieces of this puzzle better than I do, but
sometimes newb questions can be useful.

Please feel free to ask any questions about the Quebec CWN situation.
There will be updates and clarification posted here by either Sylvain
or David from ZAP Quebec in the near future.  We're still figuring
this stuff out ourselves. :-)

mike