Michael C. Richardson
Solidum Systems Corporation
mcr@solidum.com
http://www.solidum.com/
As Unix routers were replaced by dedicated software routers, so too software routers are being replaced by dedicated hardware routers built out of ASICs. There are two things that suffer in this case: J.Random hacker looses the ability build custom system, and hardware becomes obsolete whenever new protocols are released. Given how short the Internet lifecycle is, ASIC based routers are usually obsolete before they have been built.
The ability for anyone to change anything relating to the networking code has been a major source of strength for Linux. Linux has become a common platform on which to build network devices.
This describes a hardware and software system developed by Solidum Systems Corporation that restores power to software programming while putting the speed of dedicated hardware to work. The debugging of this system is used as illustration of the need for this.