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

[Benjamin M. Schwartz]

Peter Robinson wrote:
>>> Hmm... so if other people join that network, and then I leave, does the
>>> network not persist?  I haven't experimented with this yet.
>> yes, it will persist
> 
> Really? My understanding of the ad-hoc network is that it basically
> puts the user that creates it wifi card into ad-hoc AP mode and that
> machine basically acts as a AP and link local IPs are used.

There's no such thing as "ad hoc AP mode"; ad-hoc and AP are opposites.
In an ad-hoc network, all traffic is sent directly from one participant to
another.  In AP (a.k.a infrastructure, master, host AP) mode, messages are
sent to the AP, which forwards them to the recipient.

An ad hoc network has no "owner", despite the proposed portrayal in the
UI.  Personally, I think that if we're going to use such a display, we
should actually implement it over infrastructure mode, with the network
owner running in host mode.  This should provide much less surprising
behavior.  In particular, in infrastructure mode, there is no mutual
routability problem.  Anyone who can reach the host is connected, and can
route to everyone else.

Both ad hoc mode and AP mode require some level of driver support, and the
maturity of this support varies between drivers.  Also, I believe
NetworkManager still has no concept of AP mode, so it may not yet be
possible to include AP mode in Sugar.  Perhaps we can change the backend
in a future Sugar release, once NetworkManager is ready.

--Ben

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