New month, new report … here a report I whipped up … please comment on this.
Chris --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Apache PLC4X (incubating) PLC4X is a set of libraries for communicating with industrial programmable logic controllers (PLCs) using a variety of protocols but with a shared API. Most important issues to address while moving towards graduation: Building the community: The PPMC and committer group has a large percentage of codecentric employees, we have been recruiting people from other companies, but will have to continue these efforts for establishing a healthy Apache community. Onboarding of new committers: With PLC4X several people on the team are not very familiar with the Apache Way. We have started and will continue our efforts on this onboarding. Make our first release Any Issues the Incubator PMC or ASF Board might wish/need to be aware of: In order to get access to some of the specifications the ASF will eventually have to become Members of some external foundations: OPC, EtherCat, Modbus … these memberships usually have a free level, that allows us to use the specifications but doesn’t result in any regular costs. We will have to discuss these details with the ASF and the other foundations. One of the external foundations (Profinet) doesn’t have a free membership. In general, the CEO of the European branch of the Profinet Foundation has signaled that it should be possible for the ASF to become a member and have an outside company pay the membership fees, but we have to discuss the details (With them as well as the ASF). How has the community developed since the last report? The Podling Name Search has been resolved successfully (https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/PODLINGNAMESEARCH-136) We have finished the process of getting setup at Apache. In of January a list of about 40 different companies, which have indicated interest in PLC4X in personal discussions have been directly contacted regarding our project, some have subscribed to our mailing lists. A small number of new people have been popping up on our mailing lists. On 23rd of January Christofer Dutz had a talk PLC4X at the Nortec 2018 conference in Hamburg (Production industry conference) (https://www.nortec-hamburg.de/). We have continuing our onboarding of new Apache committers (extended emails with a lot of explanations on why we are doing things the way we are) Testing coverage has been improved over the initial code base With Beckhoff, we managed to get a first major PLC vendor to support us with software as well as technical support. We hope on this having a signal-effect on other vendors. How has the project developed since the last report? Test coverage and SonarQube reported issues have been addressed hereby greatly increasing the quality of the initial POC code. A lot of code and architecture reviews have been done which lead to great improvements in the API itself. We have started work on a RawSocket Netty transport which is a requirement to implement protocols that are IP based, but are not TCP or UDP We have started work on implementing a driver for the Beckhoff ADS protocol (Beckhoff is very helpful with providing Specs and Support for setting up a test environment) How does the podling rate their own maturity? We have a mix of new participants and experienced Apache people involved. So far, the new participants have shown great willingness and success in adopting the Apache Way. However, we still need to continue: the on-boarding increasing the diversity of the team Also, will we need to decide and establish all the processes involved in releasing software at Apache -- Mit freundlichen Grüßen | Best regards Christofer Dutz | Senior IT Consultant codecentric AG | Kreuznacher Straße 30 | 60486 Frankfurt am Main | Deutschland mobil: +49 (1525) 3057806 <tel:+4915253057806> fax: +49 (69) 75938200 <tel:+496975938200> www.codecentric.de <http://www.codecentric.de/> | blog.codecentric.de <http://blog.codecentric.de/> | www.meettheexperts.de <http://www.meettheexperts.de/> Sitz der Gesellschaft: Solingen | HRB 25917| Amtsgericht Wuppertal Vorstand: Michael Hochgürtel . Ulrich Kühn . Rainer Vehns Aufsichtsrat: Patric Fedlmeier (Vorsitzender) . Klaus Jäger . Jürgen Schütz Diese E-Mail einschließlich evtl. beigefügter Dateien enthält vertrauliche und/oder rechtlich geschützte Informationen. Wenn Sie nicht der richtige Adressat sind oder diese E-Mail irrtümlich erhalten haben, informieren Sie bitte sofort den Absender und löschen Sie diese E-Mail und evtl. beigefügter Dateien umgehend. Das unerlaubte Kopieren, Nutzen oder Öffnen evtl. beigefügter Dateien sowie die unbefugte Weitergabe dieser E-Mail ist nicht gestattet.
