Open-Source Router to Take on Cisco? 393
ickypick writes to tell us that CNN is running an article about the emergence of an OpenSource Router product, currently in Beta, that targets mid-size enterprise customers for about one-fifth the cost of current enterprise networking giants' hardware. From the article: "The machine runs on two Intel chips, but far more noteworthy is its software, known as XORP, or extensible open router platform. The versatile open-source application can direct data traffic for a giant corporation as easily as it can manage a home Wi-Fi network." The current release is available for download from Vyatta's web site."
I foresee a day (Score:5, Insightful)
We have Routers, Firewalls, IDS/IPS's, OS's, Word Processors, Spreadsheets, Presenting software. Hell. I would love to see an experiment where an entire corporate network was made, entirely of Open Source products (except for the hardware of course). From Routers to firewalls to
That would be an interesting, and totally free network.
Also very complicated
Re:I foresee a day (Score:5, Funny)
everything but the women...
you have to pay oodles up front and, eventually, you find out the eula isn't what you where led to believe, the eula changes over time and, worst of all, the source is closed. and i mean *closed*.
Re:I foresee a day (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I foresee a day (Score:4, Funny)
The bloat... god the bloat.
Re:I foresee a day (Score:5, Funny)
I hear it works well, though getting an extended lease time or supplementary benefits added without paying extra can be problematic.
Re:I foresee a day (Score:4, Interesting)
1) OSS proponent founds business
2) business grows and stayes with OSS
3) Lower expense in IT infrastructure
4) 1/profit!
Really though, the hard part is winning over an existing business. Starting up with OSS would be magnatudes easier than converting.
-nB
Re:I foresee a day (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I foresee a day (Score:3, Informative)
Re:I foresee a day (Score:4, Insightful)
It ends with you needing a government license to buy a 500k gate FPGA.
I wish I was joking.
Re:I foresee a day (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I foresee a day (Score:4, Informative)
or there is allways that printable plastic cpu experiment that someone did some years ago...
hell, open source cpus and other logic circuits may well be a requirement for some as the stuff from the main supplyers become more and more drm-laden thanks to the power vested in the entertainment industry's bank-accounts...
sure the performance hit will be staggering, but i dont think we will use the chips to run the latest iteration of halo, or for that matter duke nukem forever...
speaking of that last game, i wonder if the people that named it knew how right they would be...
Re:I foresee a day (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Jesus. Just Jesus.!~ (Score:2)
Re:I foresee a day (Score:2, Informative)
OpenConnector [openconnector.org]
Its slated for a beta release in May. I am planning to release 1.0 of my project in may as well.
Re:I foresee a day (Score:3, Interesting)
Reliability (Score:3, Interesting)
Every machine doubles as a source of spare parts. When everything is built on as same/similar hardware as reasonable, sourcing parts in timing-critica
Re:I foresee a day (Score:3, Interesting)
Put in more RAM. Use RAM drive, boot from a CD. If a CD drive fails, borrow one from another machine and you are back up. If the CD itself fails, make a new one from its image saved on the server. If any other part fails, do the same you would do in case of a failed CD drive.
Everything has a limited lifetime. So count with it and design from mutually replaceable parts you have plenty of aroun
its not the software (Score:5, Insightful)
Software is secondary..
Re:its not the software (Score:2)
Re:its not the software (Score:3, Interesting)
However, the Operating System nowadays means the difference between a £600 price tag and a £1800 price tag on the 1800 series. Often the offerings from Cisco involve the same hardware but a different (more capable) version of IOS. The software really does create a large premium for the networking giants, and it's not just Cisco that this can be seen at
Re:its not the software (Score:5, Interesting)
Cisco IOS does nearly everything in software actually. Only on the big iron and catalyst based routers do you have dedicated hardware for packet forwarding. Try storming a cisco box with massive amounts of small UDP packets and see how well it copes. UDP is done in full software mode, you can't use CEF etc on UDP.
Might have changed in the two years I've been away from the networking world, but I don't really think so.
The slightly older 3600 series for example is just a normal PC in essence. RISC MIPS CPU, PCI for the network modules, flash for the OS.
What the do is distribute load instead. Same thing there, the older 7500 series has the CyBys architecture, where each line card is basically a separate router talking to each other over a backplane and a RSP to hold master databases and keep sync.
Yes, the Cisco 7600 has dedicated hardware for forwarding, but that is because it really is a catalyst 6500 switch under the hood.
Granted, many of the interface cards do a lot of processing for that media, framing etc, which keeps load of the main CPU. But what it comes down to is that IOS is quite efficient at doing what it does, which is forward packets.
If you want to learn more, I can strongly recommend the book "Inside Cisco IOS Software Architecture" from Cisco Press, ISBN: 1578701813
Re:its not the software (Score:3, Informative)
Yes, he means UDP (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:its not the software (Score:4, Interesting)
For a router, its mostly in the hardware, if it can keep up with real-life data rates.
Not anymore. We've recently got a new Cisco router for around $2000 which turned out to be a box with 3 100-Mbit ports. And for separate $2000 a (separate) firewall box with 4 100-Mbit ports.I am certain that a Linux box with an opteron 1xx, couple of 64 bit PCI slots and a couple of Intel 4-port cards would be just as fast and vastly more configurable at a lower price.
Re:its not the software (Score:3, Interesting)
More Trust (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:More Trust (Score:5, Insightful)
Never underestimate the power of Spin, especially when the general public has no interest in being informed about such complex subjects as network security (and lacks wisdom enough to decide that the only two reasonable courses of action are A. Learn about the subject or B. Shut the fuck up).
If the backdoors are for law enforcement purposes, why, then Cisco is simply being a Patriotic Corporate Citizen and Doing Their Part to help Stop Internet Crime etc etc. If this became a big controversy, all it would take is for one politician or one media outlet to talk even more about how wiretapping/remote logging ability is For Your Own Good and for the sole purpose of Stopping Al-Queda or whomever the convenient bogeyman of the day may be (because Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia). Rest assured that there will be such a device/tactic handy to drown out any kind of reasonable debate about the subject, should it ever become a serious issue.
The belief that a company which implements poor practices--such as undisclosed, intentional security hazards like backdoors--can "kiss their ass good bye" presupposes a market that consists entirely of informed, educated buyers who understand all security ramifications of their buying decisions (and such "features" that come with the package) and who always look after their own interests. Furthermore it assumes that they have enough sense to disregard any and all statements (on principle alone, as such claims have zero credibility) from any third parties who claim to know what is best for them, if only their particular set of restrictions were implemented. You will find that this last item is becoming lost upon us, especially in the USA.
I find this presupposition to be entirely unrealistic, and for that reason open-source alternatives can only possibly be a good thing, even if only because they give the established solutions such as those offered by Cisco a reason to avoid growing complacent.
Market (Score:4, Insightful)
Most of Cisco's market undersands the technology and security ramifications, and i think they would drop cisco in a heartbeat if this were to happen. Or at least i would hope they would...
Cisco backdoors (Score:4, Interesting)
2006 Cisco backdoor [cisco.com]
Support? (Score:4, Interesting)
Granted, some of their "engineers" leave a lot to be desired, but still, PHB's like the warm fuzzy feeling.
Re:Support? (Score:2)
Re:Support? (Score:3, Insightful)
The corporate question becomes who can you call for troubleshooting support that is "guaranteed" to help you.
(If the OSS folk don't answer your question, they don't lose money/contract)
But will it... (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, OSS community, your adversary actually works this time. Beware.
Re:But will it... (Score:4, Interesting)
As for 'custom hardware', when you get to the point that you need to route 10gig-e at line-speed, then you buy 'custom hardware'. Below that, you drop in quad 100m cards into a linux/BSD box and run something like quagga (or now XORP). I'm willing to bet that not many people here have many routers that really need those kinds of line speeds, so we can all white-box it for a small fraction of the price. I know my linux (100meg) router gets a once-a-year reboot for kernel upgrades. My linux NAT at home gets rebooted every time the power goes out longer then the UPS can handle...
The only other thing that you can't get with open source is cisco hot-failover. And from the people who need that level of reliability, you can't get that from cisco either. :) To be fair, it works now, but they were selling it for quite a while in a very VERY buggy state. I'd be very exited to see an open-source router project that handles paired or triad server configurations with VIP and lockstep state updates, for true multipath redundancy. Good luck on that one, though.
Re:But will it... (Score:2)
It seems your experience with Cisco has not been mine. Our stuff just works.
Re:But will it... (Score:2, Insightful)
it is easy to mis configure a cisco router/switch to where it will only work part of the time.. best thing to do is just flash it and start over.. only takes 30min no mater what your config looks like..
and if you can't read/redo your config in 30min then yes, you have a configuration problem
Re:But will it... (Score:3, Funny)
yeah but don't you see? A Cisco router is like an Etch-O-Sketch. After messing with them for a while, you have to turn 'em upside down and shake 'em up!!!
Re:But will it... (Score:2)
yes im pissed
yes i have multiple quagga routers
and yes ill buy something that actually work next time and won't crash randomly with no error messages
Re:But will it... (Score:4, Informative)
Not true. CARP + PFSYNC with OpenBSD and now even FreeBSD work quite nicely. You can do not only hot failover, but also load balancing.
Re:But will it... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:But will it... (Score:2)
Re:But will it... (Score:3, Interesting)
pfSense, VRRP, CARP, et al. Hot failover is a reality, and I use no Cisco equipment, although I am Cisco certified. I'm intentionally making due with all free/open source. Call it an experiment in sanity, but my company (it IS mine) is going down this path very deliberately. We'll see how things pan out in a year or two. pfSense is getting ready to hit 1.0. I'm really liking it so far, my only gripe at teh moment is that configuration is nearly 100% web based, adn no conso
Network outage? (Score:4, Insightful)
With Cisco, I call the rep, and they have a replacement device in our datacenter within the hour, and we load up the config and get it fixed.
Doubt you'll get that kind of service here, and that's what you pay for with Cisco.
Re:Network outage? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Network outage? (Score:2)
Re:Network outage? (Score:2)
So on your terms, the cost benefit is mostly crap.
Re:Network outage? (Score:2)
If the router is 1/5th of the equivalent Cisco router, you'd need FOUR spares per router to equal cost parity with Cisco. Realistically, you're probably not going to have that many, so yes - you are going to spend less money AND have a faster replacement (minutes probably) than Cisco service. Even if you had two hot swap spares per router, you're still way ahead.
Re:Network outage? (Score:3, Insightful)
So who do you call when the thing breaks?
Probbably the same people who made the thing, or possibly a 3rd company with a model like RedHat where they offer support. Honestly, how is this any different than other open source products? Support is available commercially, and on a DIY basis from the community.
Re:Network outage? (Score:5, Funny)
The A-Team.
Re:Network outage? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Network outage? (Score:2)
Re:Network outage? (Score:2)
Like everything else in the biz though, it depends how much in house experience and responsibility you want, versus having someone else to blame.
Commodity routers like this unfortunatly don't have the capabilities to reach the high end where the in house expertice is more common.
Unfortunatly for these people, exactly what seperates this new router from LEAF, freesco, openwall and the like I'm not sure. This
Re:Network outage? (Score:5, Insightful)
Thankfully if my computer screws up I can take it to any one of many repair shops. If it's a hardware issue I'll probably call the manufacturer and see what my warrentee covers me for, but if it's a software issue, blah, as if I'd call Microsoft. Of course, if it's a laptop and I don't have a warrentee, who can I call? The manufacturer, that's it.
So who do I call if my Linux box is on the fritz? Believe it or not, there's lots of people you can call. Because the software is open there's a whole lot of people who understand it and can fix it. Just like when the hardware is open.
Re:Network outage? (Score:3, Insightful)
I remember a time when one bunch of people would sell products and another bunch of people would repair them when they break.
And I remember a time when it was cheaper to fix things than it was to throw it away and buy a new one. I don't know about a washing machine, but who gets the TV or DVD player fixed when you can buy a new one for the same, or lower price? The only TV that anyone even bothers to fix is the ultra-wide screen or really expensive HD-TV.
Manufacturing has gotten much cheaper over the year
Re:Network outage? (Score:2)
Who do you call? (Score:2)
Who do you call?
Packetbusters!
Sweet! (Score:5, Funny)
Wha wha what??? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Wha wha what??? (Score:2)
In related news, hell just called tech support for one of their heaters. Minor issue, however. Will be fixed in a couple of months.
OK, now that the joke's written... (Score:3, Informative)
Makes sense to me (Score:3, Informative)
XORP is licensed under BSD, thus it is not only extensible but embraceable as well. Microsoft likes anything it can embrace and extend.
The Windows NT TCP/IP stack is substantially made up of lifted BSD-licensed code anyways (or at least started out that way). I imagine "Vista Server" could be equipped with "innovative", "advanced" routing capabilities compliments of XORP.
Uh... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Uh... (Score:2)
Re:Uh... (Score:2)
steve
Re:Uh... (Score:2)
Re:Uh... (Score:5, Informative)
Switches and routing are different things, you can't really compare the two. And again, in their router module, if you implement any sort of ACL, are you still avoiding process-switching?
This used to be the case waaaayyyy long time ago (ok we're talking years not decades) but starting in Cisco's Cat5500 series they've started pushing the FIB (Forwarding Information Base) into hardware as much as possible... Update an ACL and the assocated FIB gets updated. It started off with the first packet of a flow gets processed switch (i.e. routed) and then the rest of the flow after that gets switched after that, now with Cat6500s with a current supervisor card and fabric enabled host cards it's not even that. ACLs (now VACLs) modify the FIBs directly and everything is directly switched, TTLs decremented as they pass through, counters incremented etc (aren't ASICs nice)... allowing the processor lazely handle the hum-drum work of responding to SNMP requests that dump information tables that would chock a small horse.
Re:Uh... (Score:3, Interesting)
As far back as any of my Ciscos and servers go (almost a decade), I've had *one* power supply failure out of 20-something servers that have been in use, and that was in a box that yes, was a cheap box - with ten of them in a load-balanced pool, we don't need the expensive stuff. But of any of
I love open source software naming (Score:5, Funny)
Why route when you can XORP!
Re:I love open source software naming (Score:5, Funny)
new company dupe project (Score:3, Informative)
Could be promising for some markets (Score:4, Interesting)
For the home market, there are already open-source software solutions such as for the Linksys WRT54-series wireless router, which is itself based on the GPL. See http://www.wi-fiplanet.com/tutorials/print.php/35
Until someone funds an open-source chip foundry, these won't replace the core.
Re:Could be promising for some markets (Score:3, Interesting)
I/O used to be pretty pathetic for PCs, but when you
Software is not the issue. (Score:4, Informative)
As for (A), the same will likely become available for this if it isn't already.
(B) is a lot harder. When you get into odd network types and high-speed telco lines, it becomes a bit more difficult - it isn't as easy as just calling your Cisco salesmonkey and buying the card you need.
It should be noted, however, that adding a card to a Cisco isn't always painless. I've had to upgrade the OS - which involved upgrading both memory and flash - just to support another ETHERNET card. How many decades has Ethernet been around for, and they want an OS upgrade to support one? And only to support an additional card, the built-in ethernet worked just fine.
Right now, we're using a Linux router for ethernet routing within our data center, which it handles just fine. As soon as our Sangoma cards show up, it's also going to handle a T3 to our office as well - but only clearchannel, we can't split it between phone and data (as I'd like to do.)
A while back, I had a rather perverse thought. You can hook up a LOT of interfaces to a high-end Cisco, and most routed telecom isn't very high-bandwidth. A T3, at a measly 45 megabit, is still very small considering the throughput of today's hardware. An OC3, at 155 megabits, still isn't much. The perverse thought was that if someone would come up with T1 and T3 modules with integrated CSU/DSUs that connected via USB or firewire, you could stuff a machine chock-full of 4-port controller cards, and be able to hook up 20 or more interfaces very quickly, and easily. In theory, each USB controller card *should* be able to push the ~200 megabits without much trouble, and even a plain old 32/33 PCI bus could *almost* handle the 110 MB/s of all 20 lines at full-tilt. Realistically, however, I do know that USB has many deficiencies which entirely prevent it from fulfilling that task.
Re:Software is not the issue. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Software is not the issue. (Score:3, Interesting)
You're confusing switching with routing. Show me a Cisco that can actually perform all routing functions (including firewalling, NAT, payload inspection, etc.) on 30 or 40 gigabit lines. Sure, you can perform some rudimentary routing functions on their Ethernet switches. Can you hook a few t3s into them? Maybe hook up a couple of OC12s? Can they channelize lines into voice and data? We're ta
Is there really a market for this? (Score:2, Funny)
Well the top three questions I'd have (Score:5, Insightful)
1) By far the most important is what kind of interfaces can I get for it. Of course I can get ethernet but what about T1, DSL, SONET, etc. If all this does is route packets over ethernet, which I then need to plug in to another router to get to my WAN, that's not so useful. I'd say over 90% of the Cisco routers I see in business are for WAN connections. If you are going to have to buy those anyhow, then what's the point?
2) What kind of load can it handle? Having something that can do a gig is all well and good, but can it still do a gig with 20,000 clients generating 50,000+ connections? That's where many budget routers and firewalls fall flat. They do everything in software so they can do the traffic no problem, but it's the concurrency that kills them.
3) Does it support layer-3 switching? That's where you in effect route the first packet of a flow and switch the rest. Leads to much lower impact on the router, and lower pings. Can't do it going from one media to another, but for internal routing it's the way to go.
This is, as mentioned, not considering support. I mean it's all well and good to slap some NICs in a system, load an OS that can route traffic, and call it a router/firewall/whatever, but it's something else entirely to see that survive under a real load. We see that all the time on campus when we test new potential devices. They promise gig throughput, something I have no doubt they deliver, and less than we use, but they instantly crash when exposed to our network. Why? Well we have like 30,000-40,000 comptuers or so that generate hundreds of thousands of concurrent connections. They just aren't equipped to process that kind of load and they stop passing traffic. The Ciscos, however, that compose the entire core, edge, and distribution parts of the network, operate without problems.
T1, et al (Score:2)
The substantially longer answer is: "Not all boxes of this kind play nice - Qwest's DSL modem runs Linux, as does Linksys, and a whole bunch of other cheap off-the-shelf devices. Very very few of these are updatable by t
An Interesting Point to Note... (Score:2, Insightful)
Microsoft built an empire out of OSS (using OpenBSD). Linux tries to compete with their own, better, product. However, companies are still resistant due to "support issues" (how much support did you actually get from M$ last year, though?) and familiarity.
Cisco built an empire out of Netlib, etc. Vyatta will try in vain to take a slice of the pie, but companies again will "go with what they know".
This is how the vast majority of us have ended up with rubbish IT setups, and those
5 years late? (Score:4, Interesting)
If your big enough to need a routing protocol like BGP, your going to need some serious hardware. Software based routers running on off the self hardware are fine for 100mbit ethernet routing, but beyond 100mbit you need some specialized hardware.
I really don't see any advanage this system has over a linux router with the usual tools(zebra/quagga, ip, ifconfig, iptables, ebtables, etc...)
What is the special sauce here? (Score:2)
Packet Forwarding is so 1990's (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Packet Forwarding is so 1990's (Score:3, Interesting)
Stateful FW Failover
Zone-based Policy Configuration
Cisco Unified Firewall MIB
S
XORP + Click (Score:4, Informative)
The number 1 problem with Xorp is that it supports only a tiny fraction of standard Internet routing protocols. They don't have the developers to support anything more than a bare-bones software router. If you're only going to use what they have, it's no big deal. (NOTE: I am only including actual common routing protocols, here. There are over 150 routing protocols defined and implemented by somebody, but few routers support more than 3% and only the Really Major Routers even pass the 10% mark.)
The number 2 problem is that it lets the native OS deal with all of the QoS. This means that Xorp isn't guaranteed to behave the same on different platforms. It's not a lethal problem and some (including the Xorp developers) consider it a major bonus. I'm not convinced it's a good thing, though. It makes multicasting very confusing.
The final problem is that Click will normally be run as a kernel module, but Xorp is in userspace. This means you've a LOT of context switching when running in such a mode. Because you want minimum latency, the overhead of pushing packets into userspace in the first place might not be efficient enough.
I believe Xorp to be a good product. It is also the ONLY software router that is (a) Open Source and (b) being maintained (Quagga, Zebra and MRT are all dead, and GateD was withdrawn). I don't know if the Xorp group want more core developers, but I desperately hope that third-party developers offer patches and modules for it to beef up the abilities.
(Linux is an important software router. NetBSD and OpenBSD could be, if the routing software was good enough. The three of them should have the low-to-medium router market totally sewn up in no time flat, in a very short timeframe. That won't happen, though, if there's not enough independent interest and support.)
Can I have a hit of what you are smoking? (Score:5, Informative)
Sure, it's on the Citeseer website (Score:3, Interesting)
In fact, there was nothing there that covered multicasting, mesh, overlay, wireless or hybrid networking. There was nothing there for secure routing, eit
Re:Can I have a hit of what you are smoking? (Score:3, Informative)
Try using both, its pretty easy to see how much better openbgpd is. The memory usage difference alone is amazing, nevermind how openbgpd loads in full feeds so much faster, and doesn't occasionally lose sessions under high load like zebra/quagga. And soft-reconfig has been in for a while now.
I'm sure plenty of decent sized places are using quagga. I used to use it too. That doesn't mean its good th
XORP spawned from Click... (Score:5, Informative)
Cisco "lock" on the market? Excuse me? (Score:3, Informative)
Cisco's market share year to year over the last 5-6 years has bounced from a near-dominating 80% to as low as 50%...and it's swung that much in ONE year.
That must be some definition of "lock" I'm not familiar with...
security? (Score:2)
middle ground (Score:3, Insightful)
Now let's weigh the pros and cons... (Score:3, Insightful)
1. Cisco's IOS interface is about as clear as a brick wall. Granted, this is an incredible form of idiot-proofing - the interface makes sense, once you study everything there is to know about it. However, you absolutely positively can -not- log into a Cisco enterprise router and have even the foggiest idea as to what's going on unless you've studied them before. Furthermore, the IOS does as little for you as possible, which is a good thing from a security standpoint... However, it would be nice if there was a work-around - a nice, clean GUI or something, accessible only from a physical connection to the router, perhaps - so people that haven't spent nearly a decade busting their brains over the hardware can at least perform basic maintenance.
2. Dropping the cost of good routing and switching hardware would be wonderful. The routers and switches my school had cost in excess of $2,500 each, sometimes more, and they were older models at that. Furthermore - and this ties back into the previous statement - not having to hire people with four to eight years of schooling behind them just to manage a damn router would also drop the cost of managing an enterpise-grade network. (Granted, the people that are most likely to want to purchase this kind of hardware probably also have the money to do so, but at any rate, that's no small wad of cash.)
3. I personally think it'd be really nice to be able to actually go in and tweak the hardware and software with a much greater level of precision than what Cisco's IOS allows. This would also allow for you to expand your harware without actually having to buy or build another router. I can't help but wonder if there'd be any point or improvement in clustering a home-made router and switch... Or a server, or whatever. Long story short, being able to actually reach in and mess with the stuff without violating some kind of warranty would be nice.
I'm not about to say that Cisco is bad as a company. Cisco and their subsidiaries - Linksys immediately comes to mind - provide excellent service, and their products aren't half bad either. There are simply some issues that could be resolved by actually having access to the codebase of the software and being able to manipulate the hardware, in addition to new possibilities unlocked by the same. Cisco's track record aside, though, this is really a step in the right direction. The next thing I'd like to see are some people seeking to break into the business coming in with keyboards and soldering irons blazing, to see what can be done with this software - and some new hardware to go with it. Additionally, to make this program attractive to big business, it's going to have to make serious strides in terms of how much it can support, but if the project doesn't tank, that'd be great.
FRISCO? (Score:5, Interesting)
and that runs on pc hardware, this appears to be on custom hardware that can actually do the job. Using pc hardware only works for a small business.. the bandwidth isnt there.
Re:FRISCO? (Score:5, Interesting)
WHen I switched to ADSL Broadband, I needed a modem anyway, and for a small price difference, I bought one with a router/firewall built into it that has an easy to use web based interface.
My Freesco box served me well, but my power bills and the noise level in my study both dropped when I retired it.
Freesco is a good, easy to use and versatile product, but If all you need is a home firewall/router, there are easier ways that aren't really more expensive, even when the box and software are free.
Re:FRISCO? (Score:2)
Only meant that commodity pc hardware wont hold up under anything larger then a small busines.
Re:Its not exactly GPL. (Score:2, Informative)
If they choose not to use GPL, bsdish doenst make them bad, it makes them more free, with fewer restrictions.
Re:Its not exactly GPL. (Score:2)
if i want to sell a product with BSD code, im free to do so, without any strings atached of having to fork over code just beacuse somone asked... All i have to do is give them credit, i dont even have to admit what code i used.. With GPL, I cant get away with that,
Re:The Oracle Strategy (Score:2, Funny)
(cough, cough) Linksys (cough)
Re:Naive (Score:4, Interesting)
The main reason that Cisco doesn't use commodity PC parts in their low- to mid- end routers is that if people knew they were getting nothing more than a $4,000 PC for their $15,000, they'd be pretty pissed. Also, there would be that many more people trying to "crack" IOS to make it run on white-boxes, and that opens up a whole new line of revenue drain for Cisco. (Not that people don't obtain unlicensed copies for their Cisco hardware, though...)
Re:Naive (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't want to see this happen to routers. With the reliability/availability that is usually demanded of a router, and the fact that routers are typically only implemented by either a knowledgable user or a hired technician, I do not anticipate this will actually be a problem.
However, I have encountered your "oh well they usually learn" arrogance before. Hell, from time to time I might display this myself. You know, the idea that anyone who disagrees with you or who wants to use a different solution for their needs than what you would use could only be suffering from a lack of education and must not have any valid point. It's just a dismissal. Dismissal is a favorite tactic of otherwise logical, composed people who do not care to truly examine a particular issue and are not honest about this unwillingness upfront.
The main question your post raises for me is that there is an unstated assumption there that Cisco is absolutely dominating this market (which I do not dispute) and is therefore THE sensible choice (this is the part I find questionable). Support contracts, features, performance, blah blah blah... To me these are not the central issue because you can get your desired balance of these by shopping around. So, just explain this one thing to me - how is a majority Cisco marketshare good for anyone other than Cisco?
FYI, I agree that software routers cannot match the raw performance of dedicated specialty hardware, but I also agree that fire is hot and liquid water is wet. I get the impression that neither Xorp nor any other software router is going to be marketed to Fortune 100 companies in an attempt to directly compete with Cisco, but rather is intended for small to medium sized networks. How many mom-n-pop setups and local businesses ever turn into multimillion dollar enterprises? For this reason I do not consider the "they all migrate one day" statement to be the showstopper that you seem to believe it is.