J
Joe Jansen/ENGR/HQ/KEMET/US
Yes Ken, unfortunately you are right. Unless you are contributing code to the project your comments are considered worthless (except if you are jumping on the anti-Microsoft bandwagon).
It is not that they are considered worthless, just less important. Let's face it. If you are not willing to put the effort into helping the
project, why should you have a voting seat on the board? If these guys listened to evry single persons wish list, nothing would get accomplished.
You want it bad enough, do it!
I do not consider my comments to be an argument, it is fact. If the LinuxPLC is not going to interoperate with most of the rest of the world
it will be worthless.
The disagreement is on what you consider to be "the rest of the world". The Linux PLC guys are concerned with connecting to *equipment*. PLC's, drive controllers, Vision systems, etc. You are concerned with connecting to desktop computers. It is simply a difference of priority. As I hear your side, you want the LinuxPLC to be able to send data to HMI and
Database software. (Note, tho, that there are several good *nix db packages out there.) From Curt, Jiri, and the rest of the guys making this
work, their priority is on talking to I/O, other PLC's, loop controllers, etc. Once they get the low level functioning out of the way, they may have time for the higher level stuff. Again, the *ONLY* way to change that priority is to get involved. It is too easy for many (including myself) to say "You guys HAVE to include feature XYZ, or your project is a waste of time". Think of how motivated it would make you if someone from a non-paying customer walked into your office and told you that what you were working on was a waste of time unless it had some feature, but then refused to even lay out a specification or put any effort into getting that feature
into your project. You'd probably tell them to shove off! (I would!)
Why would any developer feel enthusiastic to contribute time and code to this project when the main people driving the project make comments like
this :
"I personally am not at all enthusiastic about anything Microsoft creeping into the project and polluting it."
(That is about the summary of recent discussions on DCOM I could find in a quick search)
Because again, history shows the "embrace and extend" method of dealing with competition. The matter is moot, anyway, because you will never get
anything MS that will be compliant with GPL.
The more interesting and productive discussion that could come out of this thread would be on what alternatives technologies to DCOM would be
"acceptable" to the LinuxPLC project - the only one raised so far is the old and tired CORBA. Not a single mention of anything XML related.
Then join the group, and get something started! Armchair quarterbacks are a dime (USD) or less a dozen. Get in there, write an XML parser, and
submit it. Evangelize the benefits of your XML system. Tell us why we should use it! What will the benefit be? and most important:
SUBMIT YOUR CODE!
Nothing, and I mean nothing, will convince anyone as easily as a functioning piece of code. That is fact.
Or ignore the whole LinuxPLC project entirely. The choice is yours, obviously. But stating "You're all completely wrong, have no idea what your doing, and wasting all your time." without caring enough to get involved, is not the way.
--Joe Jansen
It is not that they are considered worthless, just less important. Let's face it. If you are not willing to put the effort into helping the
project, why should you have a voting seat on the board? If these guys listened to evry single persons wish list, nothing would get accomplished.
You want it bad enough, do it!
I do not consider my comments to be an argument, it is fact. If the LinuxPLC is not going to interoperate with most of the rest of the world
it will be worthless.
The disagreement is on what you consider to be "the rest of the world". The Linux PLC guys are concerned with connecting to *equipment*. PLC's, drive controllers, Vision systems, etc. You are concerned with connecting to desktop computers. It is simply a difference of priority. As I hear your side, you want the LinuxPLC to be able to send data to HMI and
Database software. (Note, tho, that there are several good *nix db packages out there.) From Curt, Jiri, and the rest of the guys making this
work, their priority is on talking to I/O, other PLC's, loop controllers, etc. Once they get the low level functioning out of the way, they may have time for the higher level stuff. Again, the *ONLY* way to change that priority is to get involved. It is too easy for many (including myself) to say "You guys HAVE to include feature XYZ, or your project is a waste of time". Think of how motivated it would make you if someone from a non-paying customer walked into your office and told you that what you were working on was a waste of time unless it had some feature, but then refused to even lay out a specification or put any effort into getting that feature
into your project. You'd probably tell them to shove off! (I would!)
Why would any developer feel enthusiastic to contribute time and code to this project when the main people driving the project make comments like
this :
"I personally am not at all enthusiastic about anything Microsoft creeping into the project and polluting it."
(That is about the summary of recent discussions on DCOM I could find in a quick search)
Because again, history shows the "embrace and extend" method of dealing with competition. The matter is moot, anyway, because you will never get
anything MS that will be compliant with GPL.
The more interesting and productive discussion that could come out of this thread would be on what alternatives technologies to DCOM would be
"acceptable" to the LinuxPLC project - the only one raised so far is the old and tired CORBA. Not a single mention of anything XML related.
Then join the group, and get something started! Armchair quarterbacks are a dime (USD) or less a dozen. Get in there, write an XML parser, and
submit it. Evangelize the benefits of your XML system. Tell us why we should use it! What will the benefit be? and most important:
SUBMIT YOUR CODE!
Nothing, and I mean nothing, will convince anyone as easily as a functioning piece of code. That is fact.
Or ignore the whole LinuxPLC project entirely. The choice is yours, obviously. But stating "You're all completely wrong, have no idea what your doing, and wasting all your time." without caring enough to get involved, is not the way.
--Joe Jansen