Re: [gentoo-user] Re: A New Linux Way

[Iain Buchanan]

On Wed, 2006-01-11 at 16:16 +0000, James wrote:
[a rant]
>  I have even offered to spent my limited financial resources to get
> talented people to develop specific software and make it open source so that
> it can be used freely, ...

Just add your offer to one of these sites.  [They may all be offering
the same bounties, I didn't look to long or hard]:

http://bountycounty.org/2005/12/gnome-bounty/
http://www.gnome.org/bounties/
http://swik.net/GNOME/GNOME+Bounties/GNOME+Bounty+-+Optimization/bohh?talk

> 'Savior'  is something Linux needs.

What does Linux need saving from?  IMHO Linux is the saviour, and
various people are doing a damn fine job of making it better.  Better is
of course different for everyone, so when I say "better", I mean Linux
is becoming an acceptable solution for a larger number of people,
instead of just geeks (like me...)

>  The simple solution is for perveyours of
> (Gentoo) linux to stop being 'bone-heads' and start being Entrepreneurs.

yeauch.  No thanks, the last thing I want to do is become an
entrepreneur.  I can't even spell it!  I just like doing work. I hate
all the managerial stuff that comes along.  I've been doing some of it
for the last few months and its made me want to move to where I can just
to some Real Work[tm] again.

> You make money, become affluent, you can write all the code and give it
> to whatever cause you want. What the youth of this list do not realize is
> their "Free time" combined with strong "programming skills" is capital.
> use it wisely, and more capital will flow your way.

If you say they don't realise it, you're assuming they want capital.

> Specifically, I work as an engineer, with machines, industrial processes,
> communications,

Me too.

> Yet Linux lacks a robust open source SCADA plan.

Because there isn't the money for some company to come in and push Linux
as being the Way To Go, sell lots of licenses, and make profits.  Linux
doesn't work that way - too many distributions, too much open source -
it scares people (people who want to invest).

But, if something you want in Linux doesn't exist yet, write it!

> I have offered money to any young, talented  person wanting to make
> a name for themselves by championing the cause to develop an open source
> SCADA system for (Gentoo) linux.  No takers. none. Why? This could become
> an excellent opportunity to teach software development, and migrate
> the industrial world to Gentoo.

We got sick of the pricey commercial SCADA packages that just didn't
work well enough, so we wrote our own.  We started with the
visualisation software, wrote our own data logging software, moved onto
a communications library (which we have running on a number of PLC's,
real time PC's, windows PC's, industrial controllers, etc) and we're
improving it all the time.  I'm sure many other companies have done the
same thing, but you just don't hear about it.  We've just nearly
completed a rewrite of the visualisation software, that allows people
(for now, just us, in the future, customers) to easily create their own
'screens' to view and control devices.

In fact, not long ago we tested our version of our visualisation and
communication software against a commercial SCADA package using Modbus
TCP over a satellite link.  Let me just say that Modbus was atrociously
unresponsive in comparison.  We've built our software to handle bad
connections, especially poor 9600bps modems to remote areas (but I
digress)... 

We've chosen Gentoo to go on our HMI PC's, as well as our industrial
controllers (Look back in the archives for some discussions on getting
Gentoo to fit in under 64Mb).

> My answer to Savior Linux is "put the check into the mail, and I'll be
> right there".

I think it works the other way around.  You might have to do something
first, and then see if the check turns up.

> video controls and display of video needs to be added to the SCADA software.

Not there yet.  Don't know that we're heading in that direction
either...

So, do I want your check?  Probably not.  Will we ever release our
software to the public domain?  Maybe.  Will people use it?  Maybe not.
The fact is, we started as a small (2 person) company, started writing
our own software and hardware design, we were about 8 people when I
joined, continued with bigger and better software and hardware with less
components made by other people and more by us, and now we're over 30
people, and still moving.  I'm sure we're not the only success story in
the world.
-- 
Iain Buchanan <iaindb at netspace dot net dot au>

"MSDOS didn't get as bad as it is overnight -- it took over ten years
of careful development."
(By dmeggins@××××××××××××.ca)

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