[Tinyos-2.0wg] TinyOS 2.0 net2 Proposal

[Joe Polastre]

My role in the TinyOS community has morphed to one of "annoying guy
who proposes ideas against the status-quo."  I will continue the trend
of stirring up trouble with this email.  I encourage you, please, if
you only read and consider one email from me this year, that you read
this email.  This is my "Zigbee-TinyOS Manifesto".

I have one, very simple proposal:

** Zigbee should be the first network protocol released for TinyOS 2.0. **

Now that you've gotten over the shock, let me explain my proposal.

1) Zigbee is a standard.  Many on this list have used the tagline of
"TinyOS is the de-facto standard for network embedded systems." 
Zigbee and 802.15.4 are well-specified with extensive documentation
and alternative implementations for testing and interoperability.  For
an operating system (TinyOS 2.0) designed to operate on as many
hardware platforms as possible, having a well-defined standard
protocol available on this system is in line with the goals of
"standardized approach" and "interoperable systems".

2) TinyOS has received lukewarm, at best, recognition in the
commercial sector.  Open source projects that have been successful in
both consortium and commercial endeavors have been ones that leverage
standard technology and make it available to a wider audience in a
format that is cheaper and allows users inspection and insurance in
the case that the organization fails.  Examples of such projects are
Linux, Apache (with both HTTP and XML), JBoss, and SugarCRM.  Many
upper level managers know, or have heard of, Zigbee.  Few have any
idea what "TinyOS" is.  By providing a Zigbee solution in TinyOS, the
exposure, credibility, and attractiveness of TinyOS within corporate
enterprises skyrockets, and the potential user base of developers
willing to contribute back also increases.  As someone who has
participated in TinyOS for many years, I would be elated if this
system was widely adopted and became a first class citizen up there
with the word "Zigbee".  Let's leverage the Zigbee marketing engine
(and $$$) to put TinyOS on the map.

3) A standard protocol suite is valuable not just for commercial use,
but also for academics.  Many have asked if they could download my
802.15.4 implementation to benchmark their protocols against and
innovate above.  Having a reference, open source, implementation of
802.15.4 and Zigbee would encourage better evaluations of the wide
variety of proposed network protocols, architectures, and
implementations.

4) A TinyOS-Zigbee implementation opens the door to improvements that
the TinyOS community may propose to the Zigbee 2.0 technical working
group.  Instead of complaining about the problems with Zigbee, we have
an opportunity to get our ideas implemented in future versions of
Zigbee through active participation, evaluation, and hard facts about
improvements to Zigbee.  These improvements may simply be architecture
improvments, or they may be methods to add mobility, frequency
hopping, enhanced security models, or other items that Zigbee
currently lacks.

5) Zigbee will help frame the design of TinyOS 2.0's networking
architecture.  If Zigbee can be implemented in the architecture
proposed by the net2 group, it emphasizes the applicability of the
net2 architecture to a wide array of networking protocols, including
standardized protocols.

6) Think of the opportunities!  "TinyOS inside" stickers for
lightbulbs, thermostats, forklifts, trucks, toasters, microwaves, etc!

I leave you with these thoughts, and hope that you will seriously
consider this proposal.  For those that would like more information,
the 802.15.4 standard is available from http://standards.ieee.org and
the Zigbee 1.0 standard is available from http://www.zigbee.org

-Joe Polastre
Moteiv Corporation