❦ 16 janvier 2017 14:08 +0200, Saku Ytti <saku@ytti.fi> :
I wonder if true whitelabel is possible, would some 'real' HW vendor, of BRCM size, release HW docs openly? Then some integrator could start selling the HW with BOM+10-20%, no support, no software at all. And community could build the actual software on it. It seems to me, what is keeping us away from near-BOM prices is software engineering, and we cannot do it as a community, as HW docs are not available.
Mellanox with switches like the SN2700. I don't know how open is the hardware documentation, but they are pushing support for their ASIC directly into Linux (look at drivers/net/ethernet/mellanox/mlxsw). They are also contributing to the switchdev framework which will at some point allow transparent acceleration of the Linux box (switching, routing, tunneling, firewalling, etc.), as we already have with CumulusOS. The datasheet is quite scarce. There is a 88k L2 forwarding entries but no word for L3. Buffer sizes are not mentioned. But I suppose that someone interested would be able to get more detailed information. -- "Elves and Dragons!" I says to him. "Cabbages and potatoes are better for you and me." -- J. R. R. Tolkien