Dear NetBSD developers and Mr. Christos Zoulas, I hope you are doing well.
My name is Vignesh T, and I am writing to express my interest in working on the “ALTQ Refactoring and NPF Integration” project as part of Google Summer of Code 2025. I am a 3rd year undergraduate student in Computer Science with a strong interest in operating systems, low-level networking, and systems programming. I have been exploring the NetBSD codebase and would be honored to contribute to it through this project. About the Project Goal: The goal of this project is to modernize the existing ALTQ (ALTernate Queueing) subsystem by improving the implementation, refactoring legacy code, and reducing duplication and unsafe practices. The final step will be to integrate it with the modern NPF (NetBSD Packet Filter) framework, aligning it with current architectural and QoS standards. Deliverables: - Refactored ALTQ code with improved modularity and safety. - Updated APIs for ALTQ that align with current NetBSD coding practices. - Documentation of changes made to ALTQ and rationale behind decisions. - Integration of the new ALTQ backend into NPF (npf.conf-level support, if feasible). - Tests and example configurations for verification. Project Plan and Milestones Community Bonding Period (May–June): - Study ALTQ and NPF internals, identify coupling points and abstractions. - Engage with the community, gather feedback, and finalize the implementation roadmap. Phase 1 (June–Mid July): - Clean up ALTQ codebase: eliminate code duplication and unsafe constructs. - Modularize ALTQ into components to simplify integration with other subsystems. - Initial testing with pf(4) still using ALTQ to maintain functional parity
