[lwip-users] RFC: lwIP Release Plan

[leon . woestenberg]

Hello,

to pick up on David Ryan's idea, I have written down some notes
regarding the future developments for lwIP. 

I do think _this_ is the place for discussion, but Savannah might
be more appropriate to enter feature/change requests once we
are settled on some issues.

We can then refer to it through links/issue numbers.

We might copy current changes to changes.txt more often. There
is no sensible way for users to see what has happened to lwIP.

CURRENT

Current changes have focussed on queueing packets on the ARP
table while. Packets are queued whenever the hardware address
has to be resolved. Only one (the first) packet is queued.
(see lwipopts.h / ARP_QUEUEING)

PBUF_ROM was illegally used by lwIP users to refer to application
managed RAM. This may not longer be used as ARP queueing may
refer to the payload later. Use PBUF_REF instead (see below).

To provide packet payloads that are externally managed, a new
pbuf type has been implemented (PBUF_REF). This pbuf refers to
the payload (which is application managed RAM) up to the point
where lwIP has to queue the pbuf.

When lwIP has to queue a pbuf chain with PBUF_REF, it will make
copies of PBUF_REF types and their payload. This is transparent
to the application.
 
FUTURE

Make ALL pbufs pool based. Support a set of differently sized
pools.

ARP queueing should queue latest sent packets.
More generic queueing. Not (only) in ARP module.
Improve netif to support up, down, link status events.
Generalize ARP to support other link media, such as
wireless, Firewire, etc.
Implement dynamic routing table.


HISTORY

...


Regards,


Leon Woestenberg