[Commotion-discuss] Commotion Wireless Fano(Italy)

[Dan Staples]

Hi Luigi, my responses to some of your questions are inline:

On 05/15/2014 12:43 PM, LuigiScop wrote:
> a)I'm going to invest in Commotion Wireless :How long the 
> CommotionWireless project will be supported by you(OTI,)? I would
> like to avoid that I start with your solution and after 1 year all
> will be shutted down.

An understandable concern, for sure. I can say that OTI has every
intention to continue developing Commotion and supporting the people
and communities that use it in the capacity that we're able. We're
always limited by our funding and other commitments, but we're
continuing to search out new opportunities to increase our capacity to
evolve the platform. I certainly am committed to developing Commotion
as long as possible :)

> b)I need to understand better which effort has to be done to be in
> the condition to modify commotion software and develop specific
> applications for the community.This will not done tomorrow,but I
> want to create some local competencies for developing applications
> and support software development In other words:how did you reach
> the competences you have now? Which are your suggestions?

As for modifying Commotion itself, it depends on what you'd like to
modify or change about it. Modifying the web interface, which is what
most users will interact with, requires knowledge of basic web design
(HTML, CSS, some javascript) and OpenWRT's LuCI framework
(http://luci.subsignal.org/) which is built in Lua.

Anything more substantial than that, I would recommend learning about
the internals of OpenWRT, which has substantial (though sometimes
outdated) documentation: http://wiki.openwrt.org/. For the
Commotion-specific components, you can check out the code on Github
(https://github.com/opentechinstitute) and documentation
(http://wiki.commotionwireless.net/).

Developing applications is much more open. Any applications you can
run over the internet or on a LAN can run on a Commotion network.
Websites, file-sharing, streaming radio, game servers, you name it.
Web applications (like MediaGrid) are probably the most common. As
long as you have a server connected to the mesh that has some sort of
application running, you can announce it using the Commotion apps
portal:
http://code.commotionwireless.net/projects/commotion/wiki/Application_Portal.

> c)For planning and installing the network I need really your
> support. I can follow the guidelines on Commotion web site "get
> started".But it is save to have the final approval from who has
> already implemented succesfully the network several time. I saw the
> second Commotion node installed by Dan in Baltimore.

The largest deployed Commotion networks are in the US (Detroit and Red
Hook) and Tunisia (Sayada), and they would be good people to ask for
advice. Some of them are hopefully on this email list, which we're
encouraging to be a place for users and network builders to share
their experiences, and more info can be found here:
https://commotionwireless.net/about/where-its-used/.

> d)Where the IS4WCN will be in Europe on 2014?Can you take this 
> opportunity and come in Italy and meet us and the new"Italian
> Digital Stuart"?

I'm afraid I don't know the plans for the next IS4CWN. But if we ever
have the opportunity to go to Italy and meet you all, that would be great!

cheers,
Dan

-- 
Dan Staples

Open Technology Institute
https://commotionwireless.net
OpenPGP key: http://disman.tl/pgp.asc
Fingerprint: 2480 095D 4B16 436F 35AB 7305 F670 74ED BD86 43A9