From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 MIME-Version: 1.0 In-Reply-To: References: From: Greg Gallagher Date: Tue, 21 Nov 2017 12:26:54 -0500 Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Subject: Re: [Xenomai] [RFC] RTnet, Analogy and the elephant in the room List-Id: Discussions about the Xenomai project List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , To: "Xenomai@xenomai.org" Hi, I've been using Xenomai for a couple of years now and having been preparing my first patch. I'd love to help any way that is needed. Documentation may be a good place for me to start. I'd also be more than happy to help maintain some of the I/O frameworks. I would probably need a mentor for guidance at the beginning. Thanks On Tue, Nov 21, 2017 at 12:11 PM, Philippe Gerum wrote: > > As the GIT commit history shows, there has been no sustained effort in > maintaining several of the Xenomai I/O frameworks for several months > (e.g. RTnet, analogy), even years in some cases, despite obvious bugs > are still haunting the code base according to the mailing list. The > situation has reached a point where I see no alternative to dropping > them if the situation does not improve, because there is absolutely no > point in this project shipping bit rot software that won't ever be fixed. > > Unfortunately, this is only the tip of the iceberg. Let's face it, since > Gilles passed away last year, I have not been scaling to the Xenomai > maintenance, development and documentation tasks, with the requirement > of running my business in parallel. > > The solution to this serious problem is fitting the project to the > available resources by narrowing its goal, or conversely, by growing the > pool of contributors. > > In addition, we can rework the most tricky part of the implementation to > make it simpler to maintain, better documented, drastically lowering the > barrier on entry for new contributors, which is what I've been working > on for a year with the 4th generation of the interrupt pipeline. > Progress on this front has been significant already, but once again > limited by the time I have been able to devote to this development so far. > > For the past 16 years, this project has lived on various types of > contributions from only a few committed people and companies. At this > chance, let's mention that people who have been deploying Xenomai in > industrial applications owe a lot to Wolfgang Denk from Denx > Engineering, Siemens's Jan Kiszka and Jorge Ramirez, who have supported > the project in crucial ways directly or indirectly over the years, and > still do. > > Xenomai as a dual kernel technology showcase has been quietly delivering > on the promise of real-time Linux for more than a decade now, with > marketing tools limited to showing decent code quality, good and > reliable performance figures. As a result, to my current knowledge, > Xenomai is present in a broad range of applications and systems: > magnetic resonance scanners, 2D/3D printers, navigation & positioning, > communication equipment, autonomous vehicles, control & automation > systems in various plants. > > On the sad side of the story, this project has virtually become a > one-man show the day Gilles - my long-time friend and hacking soul mate > - left us. That show is too big for me to run it alone, which entails > maintaining: > > - the interrupt pipeline for 7 CPU architectures > - the Cobalt co-kernel > - 4 APIs, plus the "copperplate" mediating layer > - several real-time I/O frameworks, including CAN, RTnet, Analogy, SPI, > GPIO > - the documentation (which is currently unfriendly to newcomers, and > stalled two years ago or so) > - the website > - the testing and release processes > > So, let's talk about the elephant in the room: the current situation of > the Xenomai project is not viable in the long run. I can only encourage > people who feel concerned about it to discuss openly the practical steps > to best address this challenge. > > Thanks, > > -- > Philippe. > > _______________________________________________ > Xenomai mailing list > Xenomai@xenomai.org > https://xenomai.org/mailman/listinfo/xenomai >