[Commotion-dev] Current state on handsets

[Paul Fuxjaeger]

> On Fri, Feb 24, 2012 at 8:51 PM, Jeremy Lakeman
> <Jeremy.Lakeman at gmail.com>  wrote:
>> (Shameless plug) I'd say Serval Mesh is on the forefront here....
>> Simple install and config. Works on lots of phones, though known to
>> *completely* and almost permanently screw up wifi on some Droid's.

Thanks for this info!

Can you specify which models are affected in detail? And its "safe" to 
install it on all others that are in the "compatible" list? We are sure 
we have a couple of willing participants quick if we can assure them 
that it can't screw up their phone.

>> You can call between directly connected nodes, though we default to
>> batman routing which takes ages to flip paths when you are wandering
>> around.

What do think, would batman still do something useful in the "walking 
speed pedestrian scenario" or is it using totally the wrong approach in 
this case? How much effort would it be to switch to a routing management 
layer that is known to being able to cope better with these kinds of 
dynamics?

>> Our development branch has a store and forward file transfer system
>> built in, that we're also using for delay tolerant text messaging, and
>> collaborative mapping (still a work in progress).

Ideal would be if one can mimic a subscribe-to-a-named-channel 
communication paradigm, similar to twitter, but operating on "local" 
namespace scope. So when you are physically connected to this ad-hoc net 
- you can read what others post into the channel if you're subscribed to it.

But for a start it would be nice to just "see" how the network changes 
over time - visualizing the routing table growing/shrinking or 
something. This is what floats our nerd boats...

How much effort would it be to get that?

>> And everything we've done also works in wifi client / hotspot mode
>> between devices connected to the same network. Useful if you can't get
>> root on some devices.

Thats nice, so root is only necessary for getting ad-hoc mode to run? 
The rest of the serval stack can be assumed to work on non-rooted devices?

>>
>> Note that there's basically no security at this point.

That's not a problem from our point of view. It's a "fun experiment", 
not intended to be used for any security/privacy relevant communication. 
yet :)