Freifunk
The Freifunk movement develops software for free local wireless infrastructures like mesh networks to share local services and Internet connections. Freifunk Linux Firmwares based on OpenWrt are running on thousands of routers worldwide. Commercially adapted versions are used in hundred of thousands of devices.
It is the goal of Freifunk to make it easy to set up local wireless networks with local services. Freifunk meaning free wireless is the pendant to free and open source software or freely licensed content. The tools used in Freifunk networks are exclusively open source.
Open source mesh networks are more cost efficient and offer new usage cases (local content sharing, local fm radio networks, sensor networks, distant visual observation etc.) and business opportunities. Freifunk is comparable to an open digital space like public streets and parks.
Freifunk software tools and firmwares are available in different ¨flavours¨ adapted to local conditions and policies of communities and local ISPs (for example a business man in a small town, who sets up a mesh network for his community and gets paid for providing Internet, whereas local exchange inside the network is freely available).
The Freifunk community encompasses people working on open source software, open hardware, the actual set up of infrastructures and freely licensed content.
-- SUMMER OF CODE AND FREIFUNK COOPERATION WITH UNIVERSITIES --
The Freifunk community has established relations to universities and educational institutions. We are able to offer ECTS credits for many projects in the summer of code through the TU Berlin (see Ideas Page for details http://wiki.freifunk.net/Ideas). Please check with your university for specific conditions for acceptance of credits.
-- FREIFUNK FIRMWARES--
The embedded Freifunk Firmwares (operating system) are specially adapted OpenWrt Linux Versions that are developed for routers and mobile devices. The firmwares are particularly lightweight and use less resources compared to other systems. They run on devices with minimal hardware specifications and work well on extremely low powered devices thus can be used in environments with limited energy resources.
Main features of Freifunk Firmwares are a common web interface and pre-installed mesh routing protocols. There are different versions available that are customized versions of Freifunk OpenWrt developed by local groups and adapted to local needs and conditions. For example a large city network has different needs than a small Freifunk network in a mountainous village. The firmwares offer common features and can be extended through plugins.
The original Freifunk Firmware is developed by Sven-Ola since 2003. Many others have joined since then. The main aim of the firmwares is to make it easier and faster to set up wireless networks, and particularly mesh networks. Installation, customization and administration of OpenWRT for normal users is much easier with Freifunk Firmwares as it provides a prebuild Linux version with OLSR daemon and a web based user interface.
-- LOW POWERED DEVICES --
Freifunk Firmwares are designed as embedded Linux´ for low powered devices and tools. The firmwares can be adapted for a wide variety of local as well as mobile devices.
-- A STRONG COMMUNITY AND MANY COMMERCIAL USERS --
The Freifunk firmwares are being used in wireless mesh networks around the world with the biggest ones reaching more than 700 nodes in cities like Berlin or Leipzig. Commercially adapted versions are included on hundreds of thousands of routers of companies like FON.com (main investor Google) and Open-Mesh.com. The firmware is currently gaining popularity with local ISPs in developing countries such as China, India and South Africa, as it is easily adaptable to local needs. Teams of our community are also working on combining advantages of projects like Android and OpenWrt by sharing code.
-- WLAN/Wifi COMMUNICATION --
Freifunk/OpenWrt supports ad-hoc WLAN communication and layer 2 and 3 routing with the OLSR protocol and the BATMAN routing protocol. By building the Freifunk embedded firmware together with the OpenWrt team we are developing an easy to use self-configuring, self-fixing and self-tuning mesh network (http://wiki.openwrt.org/Freifunk).
-- PLUGINS --
Current test versions on SVN (https://dev.openwrt.org/wiki/GetSource) are enabling developers to create plugins for the firmware. These plugins will enable users to offer locations based services, local search, router CMS, local fm radio distribution via routers, and many more. An example for locations based services is Apple Bonjour that offers users to share their music in local wifi networks, however, in Freifunk mesh networks, there are many more ways to share and communicate as services are build on open standards and open source software.
-- LOCAL SERVICES --
WLAN Telephones for local and regional phone companies - this is another project where we are connecting services for more cost efficient communication: The Villagetelco project. The goal is to adapt the firmware to offer telephone services over an adhoc network (www.villagetelco.org).
-- ADAPTING THE FIRMWARES --
Going in another direction the community also engages to port applications and desktop environments such as LXDE (http://lxde.org) to OpenWrt for Freifunk clouds to offer faster devices with an X interface and making use of thousands of available applications. The porting of code from Google Android also aims to support the adaptability of the Firmware for special use cases.
-- COMMUNITIES AROUND THE WORLD --
The development of the Freifunk Firmwares is supported by the freifunk.net initiative. Freifunk.net also supports the set up of networks and educates the public and politicians about open standards and free frequencies. Read more about free wireless networks around the world and visit the global Freifunk newswire at global.freifunk.net.
Links:
* http://wiki.freifunk.net/Ideas
* http://wiki.openwrt.org/Freifunk
New IRC for International Community
irc.freenode.org #freifunk
These projects have been accepted into Freifunk. You can learn more about each project by visiting the links below.
| Student | Title | Mentor | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
Mesh Node Status Monitoring / SNMP DataSource for freimap |
Alexander Morlang |
accepted |
|
Effective measurement in mesh networks |
Alexander Morlang |
accepted |
|
small distributed storage |
Felix Fietkau |
accepted |
|
OBAMPxP olsrd plugin: Multicast multimedia delivery in OLSR community mesh networks |
Nino Ciurleo |
accepted |
|
Improving LXNM, adding open networks and mesh support |
Mario Behling |
accepted |
|
Developing Firmware for Vietnam based on Freifunk Firmware |
Mario Behling |
accepted |
|
Freifunk.net - Social Networking for Real Life Communities |
Mario Behling |
accepted |
|
Service Control Module for Freimap |
Thomas Hirsch |
accepted |
|
Service Discovery in Mesh Networks / Avahi DataSource for freimap |
Mario Behling |
accepted |
|
IPv6 and TLS capable network-superserver in Lua and C with HTTP and RPC Slave |
john crispin |
accepted |
