From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: "Auel, Kendall" Date: Tue, 21 Nov 2017 19:27:56 +0000 Message-ID: References: In-Reply-To: Content-Language: en-US Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable MIME-Version: 1.0 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 Philippe, Is there an online bug tracking and feature request database? This would be= a useful way to distribute work and to sync up contributors. I think the k= ernel uses Bugzilla, and Ubuntu has Launchpad. No doubt there are many othe= rs. I'd like to contribute in some way. I've been having a lot of fun as a Xeno= mai user. Regards, Kendall -----Original Message----- From: Xenomai [mailto:xenomai-bounces@xenomai.org] On Behalf Of Philippe Ge= rum Sent: Tuesday, November 21, 2017 9:12 AM To: Xenomai@xenomai.org Subject: [Xenomai] [RFC] RTnet, Analogy and the elephant in the room As the GIT commit history shows, there has been no sustained effort in main= taining several of the Xenomai I/O frameworks for several months (e.g. RTne= t, analogy), even years in some cases, despite obvious bugs are still haunt= ing 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 n= ot improve, because there is absolutely no point in this project shipping b= it rot software that won't ever be fixed. Unfortunately, this is only the tip of the iceberg. Let's face it, since Gi= lles passed away last year, I have not been scaling to the Xenomai maintena= nce, development and documentation tasks, with the requirement of running m= y business in parallel. The solution to this serious problem is fitting the project to the availabl= e resources by narrowing its goal, or conversely, by growing the pool of co= ntributors. In addition, we can rework the most tricky part of the implementation to ma= ke it simpler to maintain, better documented, drastically lowering the barr= ier 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 contribut= ions from only a few committed people and companies. At this chance, let's = mention that people who have been deploying Xenomai in industrial applicati= ons 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 bro= ad range of applications and systems: magnetic resonance scanners, 2D/3D printers, navigation & positioning, comm= unication equipment, autonomous vehicles, control & automation systems in v= arious plants. On the sad side of the story, this project has virtually become a one-man s= how 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, GPI= O - the documentation (which is currently unfriendly to newcomers, and stalle= d 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