[Commotion-dev] Unifying Serval and Commotion Mesh

[Paul Gardner-Stephen]

Hi All,

>From a Serval Project perspective, we see much value in converging on
a single "standard" SSID (and ideally BSSID) for WiFi mesh networks
for Serval and Commotion.  The logical choice is almost certainly to
use whatever values that Commotion uses.

In fact, what we would like to see in time is that Commotion and
Serval's Android ad-hoc WiFi mesh management software converge into a
single thing, and possible a single APK that contains all Commotion
and Serval functions, or possibly it will be two separate APKs --
there are arguments for and against.

But back to the present...

The BSSID/ad-hoc bug issues on Android phones remains a source of
intense pain (which is part of why we are working on a "mesh helper"
device that would basically be a cross between an OpenWRT router and
mobile phone, that would basically be pocket-sized battery-powered
WiFi adhoc+AP plus long-range UHF radio).

So I am not sure that a final solution is possible now, but we are
thinking about our default SSID for the Serval Mesh 0.90 release we
are hoping to have out by Christmas, and we hope to continue the
conversation about converging this all as much as possible.

Our feeling in the lab here is that until we have interoperation
sorted out, that we will probably default to a serval-specific SSID,
probably mesh.servalproject.org, so that it will point people to a
(yet to be populated) web page where they can learn more.  But for
0.91 and later, we hope to make moves towards convergence.  Perhaps
having a short list of configured network names and patterns is the
next step, but this is all really thinking out loud for now.

Paul.