An article hit CNN today describing XORP, the open source router project.  Cool, right?

Well, I hate to be negative about the whole thing, but:

The project isn't really new, it's been around for over two years.  And, the OSPF code is new code so there may still be some problems.  Taking on Cisco with that on the website?  Heh.

To beat out Cisco, or any other routing vendor, you need a large company with a huge team of support engineers.  I've only been in the industry for a little bit, but this is what it seems managers and directors want.  Doesn't matter if your product is cheap and can run circles around the competition's features; the corporate image and support structure are important, and that.. takes time.  Have you ever gotten laughed at suggesting the use of a Unix-based router running Quagga?  I have.  (Ok, Quagga sports magnificant suckage of its own, but let's just imagine that wasn't known by all parties at the time)

With that said, I do hope XORP succeeds and does eventually beat out Cisco.  I just don't like overhyping things.  For the record, I'm not a Cisco fan :)

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