developerWorks: Open Source Wireless Tools Emerge

“As 802.11 and other forms of wireless LAN technology become
more popular — and mobile applications become established in
corporate life — open source-based applications and tools are
gradually emerging for use in the unwired world. Open source
developers are creating apps that fill a long list of key WLAN
roles, including connection monitors, WAP gateways, configuration
analyzers, and security packages. There’s also a slowly growing
group of open source-based development tools under development,
some from giants like Nokia and others from ad-hoc groups of
volunteer programmers.

“Though open source projects are beginning to bloom, wireless
tools and apps are emerging more slowly than open source
applications in other significant networking and telephony
categories. At present, the mobile development world is largely
controlled by major handset manufacturers, companies that generally
make money by licensing copies of their own operating systems. And
wireless LANs, for their part, have not become critical enough to
attract the interest of the corporate sponsors who can give large
open source projects a kick start…”

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