[Commotion-announce] Commotion Developer Release 1 is ready for download and testing

[seamus tuohy]

Commotion's first developer release (DR1) is now available for testing. 
This version replaces our September 2012 pre-release (PR3) and adds 
several new features. Though Commotion developers tested each component 
feature, we will begin extensive pre-release testing of the entire DR1 
suite in the coming weeks. We hope you will join us in testing the new 
components.

Pre-built Commotion packages for Ubiquiti routers and Android devices 
can be found at https://commotionwireless.net/download, with DR1 listed 
under Nightly Builds and PR3 listed as Stable. The download page also 
provides links to the Commotion source code for those who wish to build 
their own packages. We have pre-built images for testing on Ubiquiti 
wireless hardware. The source code includes instructions for building 
Commotion’s test release on other hardware for those that wish to test 
on their own devices.

The DR1 release brings a complete overhaul to the Commotion system while 
still ensuring compatibility with PR3 release Commotion nodes. 
Forward-facing features include a new theme, easy "quickstart" node 
configuration, application announcement and discovery, and a one-click 
troubleshooting tool. Behind the scenes, DR1 contains a core Commotion 
daemon and new cryptographic system.

The quickstart tool provides an easy interface for node configuration. 
The Commotion daemon provides a common mesh network management interface 
through an embedded library, and forms the core of future Commotion 
platform development. Commotion's new application suite uses mDNS to 
announce local applications across the network. Users can find local 
applications using the router’s web-based application portal. Node 
owners can easily manage and customize application portals for better 
community application support. The application portal integrates the 
Serval Project's key management daemon, which provides transparent 
message encryption and authentication. Finally, the debugging helper 
creates custom, downloadable documents for offline debugging by network 
administrators.

Each of these tools still requires thorough testing to ensure they are 
both stable and well documented. If you are an interested user, 
developer, hacker, or are just plain interested, we would love to hear 
your feedback. Following initial internal testing, DR1 will undergo lab 
testing on an eight-node physical test environment. Then we will install 
on the Open Technology Institute’s (OTI's) 18-node testbed community 
network. Once the software is deemed stable, we will deploy it on an 
active six-node community wireless network for user testing.

We will update the documentation to incorporate user feedback once 
testing is completed. After the build has been thoroughly tested and DR1 
has become stable, we will update the warning label on the downloads 
page to reflect the capabilities and limitations of this release. We 
will then bring the other Commotion platforms up to feature parity with 
the DR1 Commotion OpenWRT release.