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Ask Slashdot: Is There Space For Open Hardware In Networking?
New submitter beda writes: Open hardware has got much attention with the advent of Raspberry Pi, Arduino and their respective clones. But most of the devices are focused either on tinkerers (Arduino) or most notably multimedia (Raspberry Pi). However, there is not much happening in other areas such as home routers where openness might help improve security and drive progress. Our company (non-profit) is trying to change this with Turris Omnia but we still wander if there is in fact demand for such devices. Is the market large enough and the area cool enough? Are there enough people who would value open hardware running open software even with a higher price tag? Any feedback would be most valued.
Raspberry Pi is not an open, depends on closed source blobs in firmware and drivers. Stop spreading the lie
Beyond which, it already exists. Soekris is an example. Not "open hardware" for the design itself, but open in the sense that it supports open software development (e.g. on FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD and Linux).
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Well, to be fair, good networking would require an ASIC designed for networking. It may in fact actually exist, but I haven't found any (haven't looked) and there would be other parts that need to be open for me to consider it "Open Hardware". There are plenty of commodity parts to build a semi-open networking stack, but those are all closed source hardware components.
The question is, how "open" is open?
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
If you check out the product mentioned in the summary (Turris Omnia), they call it "open source hardware," but there's no schematic or reference design offered or even promised, they don't mention what if any network ASICs it uses - so how is it "open hardware?" Their previous offering, "Router Turris," despite having a reference design and being claimed as "open source hardware", used the Qualcomm QCA8337N-AL3C, so it isn't really open hardware, either, and is much more closed than hardware which doesn't require binary blobs to work (well). If I document a Juniper SRX in a box with an Arduino connected to its console port, can I then call it "open source hardware?"
Broadcom has the lion's share of the market for network ASICs, and is very much a closed environment. So, there you'd find all sorts of binary blobs. The Soekris' (there are no doubt similar ones from others) are really embedded PCs, with good open source driver support much like a PC. But they provide more ports with lower power, smaller footprint, and lower cost than trying to configure a PC for anything but the simplest routing. Soekris' uses the Intel 82574L Ethernet IC, which is supported by the open source e1000e driver.
It's not clear what the use case is (in the near term) for home routing with multi-GB throughput. Isn't firewall/NAT/VPN the main need, with non-routing/bridging services (DHCP, DNS, print/file sharing etc.) tacked on for convenience since consumers seem to think that "routers" do more than divide broadcast domains.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Are 10 gig parts that complicated that they're staying so expensive for so long?
Yes. 10Gbase-T runs a complicated encoding which requires power-hungry processing. Note how you cannot buy a 10Gbase-T SFP+ module for love or money; the power/cooling budget of SFP+ does not permit it to exist. Yet you can trivially get optical SFP+ modules designed for 80km, where 10Gbase-T is struggling to reach 100m.
10Gbps+ ethernet for the home will happen, but I doubt it will be 10Gbase-T.
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
How about $250? http://www.mitxpc.com/proddeta...
Intel chipsets, gigabit speeds, and fanless. And runs the successor to m0n0wall, so it will run for years.
Or if you need more ports, they have more options.
With many modern OS's adding spying and telemetry features and then disabling all the tried and tested methods to bypass them it may wind up that the router is the only way to retain our digital privacy. So yes, I think open source networking has great utility.
True, but how is this better then the wealth of FOSS router projects our there now? SmallWall, t1n1wall, pfSense, OPNsense, BSDrp, OpenWRT, DDwrt, Untangle, or any *nix with routing turned on?