[Sugar-devel] [Design] Ad-hoc networks - New Icons

[Daniel Drake]

2009/8/11 Simon Schampijer <simon at schampijer.de>:
> I wonder if the ad-hoc network will scale up to that number of users :/
> Though I am not an expert in this area. Maybe Daniel has some more
> insights on this topic.

Yes. Ad-hoc networks do not scale at all because they are range limited.

They also act quite odd in terms of networks because you frequently
have situations where C can see A and B, but A and B are unaware of
each others presence. This will lead to funky situations where C could
share an activity, A and B could join without problems, but any
actions by A would not be seen by B and vice-versa.

The basic philosophy behind ad-hoc networks is "shout unless someone
else is shouting" which also ends up causing various network splices
and merges thanks to the poor quality of radios in the world, and
interference.

In short, ad-hoc networks are not reliable (especially when there are
more than 2 participants) and are very quirky. It is a nice feature to
have in sugar but it is not something that should be created
automatically since in many cases they will just waste airtime for
reliable networks and cause headaches for users.

Automatic infrastructure-less networks are still very desirable of
course, and the best solution that I know of for that would be
open80211s which needs work done lower in the stack before it can be
directly usable by sugar.

and we're miles off topic on a thread about icons.. sigh
Daniel