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A long time openwrt user here. What puzzles me the most is that, those who are forking openwrt are the the majority group of core developers for openwrt, so I

by ausjke 11y ago

A long time openwrt user here. What puzzles me the most is that, those who are forking openwrt are the the majority group of core developers for openwrt, so I don't know why they are leaving the project they're in control in the first place. It seems a few core developers left behind are also in shock, nobody knows why, and there is no dispute in the community that led to the split either, truly a mystery.

dman 11y ago
Maybe this is the first step towards launching a commercial offering?
- ausjke 11y ago
  this is something to be found out
- tyingq 11y ago
  If so, this blurb from the about page seems interesting: "LEDE is also an alternation of the phrase to lead, describing an introductory section of a news story that is intended to entice the reader to read the full story."
- mcbridematt 11y ago
  Given that OpenWRT is the reference distribution of choice for networking chipsets these days, the reference goals do seem to be focused on making it better for that. The last couple of OpenWRT releases have moved fast, in the future OpenWRT could move closer to the cutting edge without the pressure of users who want long term stability?
wtallis 11y ago
It could be that they just didn't want to cause any trouble with attempting to broaden the scope of OpenWRT to more general embedded development rather than a networking focus.
RichardLake 11y ago
The devs have put up their meeting notes. http://meetings.lede-project.org/lede-adm/2016/lede-adm.2016-03-30-11.05.log.html http://meetings.lede-project.org/lede-adm/2016/lede-adm.2016... There is some discussion starting around 1230. My reading is that they thought that the OpenWPT reputation re: development matters was poor.
- reitanqild 11y ago
  BTW that seems to be a nifty irc bot: http://wiki.debian.org/MeetBot http://wiki.debian.org/MeetBot
  - RyJones 11y ago
    We use it widely with projects we support at the Linux Foundation. It's great!
ricardobeat 11y ago
What about the reasons stated in the post? Number of active core developers at an all time low, no process for getting more new people involved. Unreliable infrastructure, fixes prevented by internal disagreements and single points of failure. Lack of communication, transparency and coordination in the OpenWrt project, both inside the core team and between the core team and the rest of the community. Not enough people with commit access to handle the incoming flow of patches, too little attention to testing and regular builds. Lack of focus on stability and documentation.
- yk 11y ago
  All of these are made worse by a fork. [Edit:] Since I am getting downvoted let me get through their stated reasons: Number of active core developers at an all time low, no process for getting more new people involved. A fork is cutting the number of available devs in half and creates uncertainty for new people. So it should hurt in the short term. Unreliable infrastructure, fixes prevented by internal disagreements and single points of failure. Then fix the infrastructure. ( If the fixes are actually prevented by internal disagreement, this may be a argument for a fork.) Lack of communication, transparency and coordination in the OpenWrt project, both inside the core team and between the core team and the rest of the community. This may or may not be improved by a fork. It is certainly easier to manage a community half the size and a fork may be a fresh start, but it seems a better idea to try to improve their process. Not enough people with commit access to handle the incoming flow of patches, too little attention to testing and regular builds. Not enough people, so we are splitting the team. Lack of focus on stability and documentation. To some extend documentation and testing profit from enough available manpower. Apart from the "internal disagreement" argument all of these arguments may be pain points but are not really arguments for forking the project, some are orthogonal some are actually arguments against a fork. So I wish them the best, but from the outside this fork does not look promising.
  - supercheetah 11y ago
    The egcs fork from gcc was the only thing that finally gave the gcc devs the kick in the butt they needed to start making much needed changes, and then things eventually got merged. Maybe it will happen with OpenWRT/LEDE too.

by ausjke 11y ago

dman 11y ago

Maybe this is the first step towards launching a commercial offering?

ausjke 11y ago
this is something to be found out
tyingq 11y ago
If so, this blurb from the about page seems interesting: "LEDE is also an alternation of the phrase to lead, describing an introductory section of a news story that is intended to entice the reader to read the full story."
mcbridematt 11y ago
Given that OpenWRT is the reference distribution of choice for networking chipsets these days, the reference goals do seem to be focused on making it better for that. The last couple of OpenWRT releases have moved fast, in the future OpenWRT could move closer to the cutting edge without the pressure of users who want long term stability?

wtallis 11y ago

It could be that they just didn't want to cause any trouble with attempting to broaden the scope of OpenWRT to more general embedded development rather than a networking focus.

RichardLake 11y ago

The devs have put up their meeting notes. http://meetings.lede-project.org/lede-adm/2016/lede-adm.2016-03-30-11.05.log.html http://meetings.lede-project.org/lede-adm/2016/lede-adm.2016... There is some discussion starting around 1230. My reading is that they thought that the OpenWPT reputation re: development matters was poor.

reitanqild 11y ago
BTW that seems to be a nifty irc bot: http://wiki.debian.org/MeetBot http://wiki.debian.org/MeetBot
- RyJones 11y ago
  We use it widely with projects we support at the Linux Foundation. It's great!

ricardobeat 11y ago

What about the reasons stated in the post? Number of active core developers at an all time low, no process for getting more new people involved. Unreliable infrastructure, fixes prevented by internal disagreements and single points of failure. Lack of communication, transparency and coordination in the OpenWrt project, both inside the core team and between the core team and the rest of the community. Not enough people with commit access to handle the incoming flow of patches, too little attention to testing and regular builds. Lack of focus on stability and documentation.

yk 11y ago
All of these are made worse by a fork. [Edit:] Since I am getting downvoted let me get through their stated reasons: Number of active core developers at an all time low, no process for getting more new people involved. A fork is cutting the number of available devs in half and creates uncertainty for new people. So it should hurt in the short term. Unreliable infrastructure, fixes prevented by internal disagreements and single points of failure. Then fix the infrastructure. ( If the fixes are actually prevented by internal disagreement, this may be a argument for a fork.) Lack of communication, transparency and coordination in the OpenWrt project, both inside the core team and between the core team and the rest of the community. This may or may not be improved by a fork. It is certainly easier to manage a community half the size and a fork may be a fresh start, but it seems a better idea to try to improve their process. Not enough people with commit access to handle the incoming flow of patches, too little attention to testing and regular builds. Not enough people, so we are splitting the team. Lack of focus on stability and documentation. To some extend documentation and testing profit from enough available manpower. Apart from the "internal disagreement" argument all of these arguments may be pain points but are not really arguments for forking the project, some are orthogonal some are actually arguments against a fork. So I wish them the best, but from the outside this fork does not look promising.
- supercheetah 11y ago
  The egcs fork from gcc was the only thing that finally gave the gcc devs the kick in the butt they needed to start making much needed changes, and then things eventually got merged. Maybe it will happen with OpenWRT/LEDE too.