[openss7] BSD vs. STREAMS

["Brian F. G. Bidulock" <bidulock@openss7.org>]

All,

I'm getting tired of fighting with all the IP-specific structures
in the Linux kernel. :(

So, here's a thought: I was thinking of moving the implementation
from a BSD-sockets implementation to an SVR 4 STREAMS implementation.
There is the LiS STREAMS package for Linux (has anyone used it?)

Using the LiS STREAMS package would allow several things:

    1.) We could downgrade the licensing from GPL to LGPL or
        MPL or Phython or BSD-like or WOL so that the package
        could be used in commercial implementations.

    2.) STREAMS allows us to define a new user-level API which
        is richer than the BSD-socket abstraction.

    3.) It would be easier to I_PUSH and I_LINK M2UA, M2PEER,
        M3UA and other SIGTRAN protocols over or under the
        stack.

    4.) SS7 would be independent from the kernel, but the
        module loader and such could still be used.

    5.) SS7 management, statistics, configuration, daemons and
        other tools could be more easily bundled with the
        distribution.

    6.) The SS7 package would be less dependent upon Linux
        kernel modules.

    7.) The SS7 package could be quickly and easily ported to
        Solaris, AIX, and other SVR 4 STREAMS compliant platforms.

At the same time, we could salvage the existing state machines
and routing code.

What do you think?

-- 
Brian F. G. Bidulock    ¦ The reasonable man adapts himself to the ¦
bidulock@openswitch.org ¦ world; the unreasonable one persists in  ¦
http://www.openss7.org/ ¦ trying  to adapt the  world  to himself. ¦
                        ¦ Therefore  all  progress  depends on the ¦
                        ¦ unreasonable man. -- George Bernard Shaw ¦