Back from netdevconf 1.1 in Seville

I've had the pleasure of being invited to netdevconf 1.1 in Seville, spain.

After about a decade of absence in the Linux kernel networking community, it was great to meet lots of former colleagues again, as well as to see what kind of topics are currently being worked on and under discussion.

The conference had a really nice spirit to it. I like the fact that it is run by the community itself. Organized by respected members of the community. It feels like Linux-Kongress or OLS or UKUUG or many others felt in the past. There's just something that got lost when the Linux Foundation took over (or pushed aside) virtually any other Linux kernel related event on the planet in the past :/ So thanks to Jamal for starting netdevconf, and thanks to Pablo and his team for running this particular instance of it.

I never really wanted to leave netfilter and the Linux kernel network stack behind - but then my problem appears to be that there are simply way too many things of interest to me, and I had to venture first into RFID (OpenPCD, OpenPICC), then into smartphone hardware and software (Openmoko) and finally embark on a journey of applied telecoms archeology by starting OpenBSC, OsmocomBB and various other Osmocom projects.

Staying in Linux kernel networking land was simply not an option with a scope that can only be defined as wide as wanting to implement any possible protocol on any possible interface of any possible generation of cellular network.

At times like attending netdevconf I wonder if I made the right choice back then. Linux kernel networking is a lot of fun and hard challenges, too - and it is definitely an area that's much more used by many more organizations and individuals: The code I wrote on netfilter/iptables is probably running on billions of devices by now. Compare that to the Osmocom code, which is probably running on a few thousands of devices, if at all. Working on Open Source telecom protocols is sometimes a lonely fight. Not that I wouldn't value the entire team of developers involved in it. to the contrary. But lonely in the context that 99.999% of that world is a proprietary world, and FOSS cellular infrastructure is just the 0.001% at the margin of all of that.

One the Linux kernel side, you have virtually every IT company putting in their weight these days, and properly funded development is not that hard to come by. In cellular, reasonable funding for anything (compared to the scope and complexity of the tasks) is rather the exception than the norm.

But no, I don't have any regrets. It has been an interesting journey and I probably had the chance to learn many more things than if I had stayed in TCP/IP-land.

If only each day had 48 hours and I could work both on Osmocom and on the Linux kernel...