[OpenWrt-Devel] The old days are gone; OpenWrt is a product now

[Chris Green]

On Wed, Mar 30, 2016 at 12:12:45AM -0400, Daniel Dickinson wrote:
[snip]
> 
> The project itself is in a transition state, and, at least from what see,
> has lost a lot of mindshare for a variety of reasons (I think part of just
> that geeks (except strange ones like us) just aren't as excited by working
> on routers as in days past, and hence is left to people who are willing to
> treat it like a job, or have the time and energy, and inclination to put in
> a job-like effort.
> 
I'm mostly a lurker on this list.  I bought a Mikrotik router a while
ago because I wanted a reasonably powerful (computer-wise) router that
I could run Linux on.

My experience wasn't entirely positive.  I did get openwrit installed
and running on the Mikrotik but it took a long time and involved quite
a lot of learning plus a patch (search back for RB2011).

I think you are right in saying that openwrt is caught between two
stools.  It's not 'solid' enough to be in the same world as most Linux
distributions.  You can't install it like you can Ubuntu or SuSe or
anything like that, there's almost bound to be more hassle than
'insert this CD/DVD and power up'.

On the other hand it's got too big and complex to really appeal to the
hardware bashing fraternity and anyway they've all gone off to
Rasperry Pi, Beaglobone Black, Arduino, etc.

Unless openwrt becomes the OS of choice for some mainstream routers
and can be updated and maintained regularly like 'ordinary' Linux I
think it will remain a niche interest.

-- 
Chris Green
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