On Tue, Mar 12, 2002 at 06:10:12PM -0600, Bob Tanner wrote:
> http://www.ayrnetworks.com/

yeah, sometime last year I saw the port of linux to Cisco routers (4000
series and higher) go across Freshmeat. dunno if this is exactly the same
project; but it seems to be related.

the bit that worries me about this company, is how closely they're keeping
their source code, and how their white paper seems to be 'straddling the
fence' with open & closed-source software. they talk a lot about integrating
closed-source software with their linux distribution.
I can understand where they're coming from; since they're probably a small
company and it would be easy for Cisco (or some other competitor) to come
along and undercut their technology. 
hopefully they aren't going to be problematic about their GPL obligations,
like NuSphere and Abit were for a while.

the paper is interesting where it discusses the differences between embedded
routing OSes, and general-purpose UNIX routers. it's a pretty good argument
and makes some sense of why Cisco is switching to x86-based boxes for their
hardware lately. 
Linux probably has a way to go before it deals as well with a large number
of interfaces, as IOS or some other OSes do; but at the moment it's
reasonable to just throw more hardware at the problem (most of the time),
since hardware is so ridiculously cheap these days.

Carl.
-- 
Network Engineer
Real-Time Enterprises
www.real-time.com