[Xorp-hackers] OLSR

[Bruce Simpson]

Ben Greear wrote:
> Any reason we can't move OLSR out of contrib and into the main directory
> so that we can build it with scons?  In my testing OLSR was as stable as
> any other protocol, and if someone doesn't want to use it, they
> simply don't add it to their xorp config file, eh?
>   

I'd rather we didn't move it out of contrib/ until well after 1.7. The 
OLSR implementation in XORP is based on a reasonably strict 
interpretation of the RFC, and doesn't have support for IPv6 or the ETX 
extensions, which are pretty much essential now for folk deploying OLSR 
in the field.

I would consider it an unfinished work in progress. It became clear, at 
that point in time, that there were just too many other issues in the 
existing architecture to deliver what the original client wanted on time 
and within budget.

I understand people are certainly using it and trying to base work off 
it. That's great, and I'm pleased folk have found what's been produced 
to date, useful in some way.

But I'd rather we didn't create the impression that it's mainline or 
supported code, until the story with extensibility is dealt with, and 
that's a risk in moving it into the top of the tree. There are other 
problems to be solved first, and de-contrib'ing it at this point in time 
seems like a distraction from the primary goals.

So +1 vote for 'come back to this later on'.

P.S. I'm not 100% happy with OLSR, as you can probably tell. There are a 
few places where it could borrow from Joe Macker's code for more 
efficient MPR set computation, and Boost might well make that easier. 
There's a list of stuff in contrib/olsr README and NOTES. Note well the 
comment about BufferedAsyncReader eating 256KB for *every* STCP session 
in XRL!!