[maemo-developers] [maemo-developers] networking questions & requests

[From: Justin Bradford]

First, I love the direction you taken so far with maemo and the 770. I
have a ton of ideas for open source applications for this thing. And I
know this is not the place to discuss such things, but the potential
vertical market, proprietary software possibilities are astounding.

Second, I have some questions and suggestions for software
implementation on the networking side, however. I believe I have read
every bit of text at or linked from the maemo site, and I apologize if
I missed something that has been covered.

1. There are ssl libs on the dev platform, I assume that ssl will be
available on the released platform (the 770). I just wanted to
double-check, as that is a critical feature.

2. The docs regarding the network connection are a tad unclear. With
the prelink, I know some form of net connect wizard will appear for
the user when the app opens a socket. My question is what exactly this
wizard offers in the way of net connections. I assume it will offer a
list of detected wifi networks. I also assume it will be capable of
password authentication (if necessary) to those networks. However:
will the net subsystem be capable of forming ad hoc networks --
whether by wifi, bluetooth, or irda -- to  other "client" systems in
range? For example, will two 770's be able to form an ad hoc net with
each other in the absence of an AP? With some desktop or laptop with a
wifi card?

3. zeroconf (Rendezvous) support would be an amazing feature to have.
It would easily quadruple the utility (as a network device) of the
770.
    (a) from the simple utility perspective of ad hoc network formation.
    (b) maemo apps could query and utilize generalized network
resources, such as printing   (even if maemo does not ship with a
print infrastructure, it would be trivial for printers/desktops to
provide a generic "give me an rtf (or pdf or whatever) and I'll print
it" resource), file shares, im, appliance controls (stereo & video
[tivo, itunes, arq, slim, xamp, etc], home automation, etc), and so
much more.
    (c) applications could offer their own zerconf net services. 
obviously an im/chat client, when running, should advertise zeroconf
service, so im/chat users on the local network could say hello.
    (d) ideallly, another line in the DBUS/osso service description
could describe the zerconf net service -- so a program would not even
have to be running for its potential service to be advertised. if some
remote app requested the service, it would start the program (which
need not be a gui program -- could simply be something behind the
scenes to the user).
In the im/chat example, it could put an info message, saying "Joe is
on this network, want to talk to him?" But really, the potential of
this feature is with the ideas none of us have yet.

Anyway, if Nokia put in even basic zeroconf support, with mere
detection/use of external resources, it would provide for amazing cool
applications. Even better if maemo apps were capable of offering
services (whether the relveant app was currently running or not). This
would change the baseline expectation of it means to "just work".
Really, zeroconf seems to be made for a device like this (something
powerful and incredibly mobile).

Even my utterly non-geek, non-technical friends are interested in the
770. Once I tell them about the things I hope can be written for the
platform: they start asking how to pre-order.