Avui, 10 de Juliol del 2.007, hem tingut un fantàstic taller de 3 hores amb més de 20 participants de diferents projectes europeus i nosaltres sobre el maquinari (hardware) obert. La tasca era com distinguir "maquinari obert", com definir-lo i descrire dos tipus de punts d'accés, un de molt simple (el node simple), i un de més complert, el que a Catalunya anomenen "supernodes".

L'esperit d'aquestes definicions és de proporcionar aquestes descripcions a diferents fabricants de maquinari per animar-los a construir-los. Estem convençuts que les comunitats arreu del món faran un ús extensiu d'aquesta mena d'equips de manera que el fabricants podran recuperar la seva inversió.

(pendent d'acabar de traduir - pending to finish the translation)
The definition of Open Hardware was defined to be a system that runs a free open source software (FOSS) based operating system with full FOSS driver support for all included components, plus a freely available complete documentation on the entire hardware and its design.

The device should be shipped with a FOSS operating system. Amongst the attendees of the workshop the most preferred OS would be OpenWRT plus a nice and well designed webGUI on top of it.

Regarding the prices, these systems should be as inexpensive as possible at the places they are used, which might also be achieved by special distributions in bigger charges with less packaging (10,50,100 boards in one box) for communities.

1. Simple Node
- single wireless a/b/g radio device with support for virtual access points
- single Ethernet port with high tolerance PoE support (4-30V)
- power system must resist reverse polarity
- 4 Mbyte Flash
- 16 Mbyte RAM
- 200 MHz CPU
- serial port
- JTAG interface
- one Antenna plug (reverse SMC) and no explicit need for diversity
- for outdoor usage (which is regarded to be a standard scenario) the board does not need a box and does not need to be shipped with antenna and power supply
- power consumption should be as little as possible (solar systems!)

Comment: Finding the consensus on the design for the simple node was quite easy and did not take very long. It seams that the needs and wishes of the different groups represented by the attendees are very similar.

2. Super Node
- two embedded wireless a/b/g radio devices with support for virtual access points
- two Ethernet ports with standard 802.3af PoE support
- power system must resist reverse polarity
- 8 Mbyte Flash
- 32 Mbyte RAM
- 500 MHz CPU
- two USB 2.0 ports
- two miniPCI slots (both stackable up to 8 cards)
- serial port
- JTAG interface
- two Antenna plugs (reverse SMC) and no explicit need for diversity
- for outdoor usage (which is regarded to be a standard scenario) the board does not need a box and does not need to be shipped with antennas and power supply
- power consumption should be as little as possible (solar systems!)

Comment: Finding a compromise on the super node really was a hard time, because there can be different ways to achieve the same goals. For example, if wireless USB devices had a better FOSS support, many of the super nodes could just easily be built without the need for miniPCI. Also super nodes can be built with simple wireless bridges connected over ethernet (high power consumption?). But anyway, after many looong discussions the group had a consensus on the points listed above.

3. wireless USB devices
As already mentioned, super nodes could well be build using wireless USB devices instead of mini PCI cards (less expensive cabling, less interference between the devices). But to be able to use them, people need FOSS drivers for them, which support all wireless modes (managed, ad-hoc, AccessPoint), and the USB devices should have a reverse SMC antenna connector.

A list with the names of the attendees of the workshop shall be added here tomorrow. If you can't add your comments here, please send me an email to juergen(at)freifunk(dot)org.