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? Christofer has invested most of his time in February spreading the word about PLC4X. A first POC has been created for the company “Kampf Schneid- und Wickeltechnik GmbH & Co. KG” Two articles for IoT Special editions of German tech magazines have been submitted. The “JavaSPEKTURM – IoT Sonderheft” is scheduled for sale end or March, the “iX – IoT Sonderheft” is scheduled later. The university of Stuttgart has shown great interest in joining our effort, as they had just started a project with a similar goal. Chris will continue on-boarding efforts in March. At this year’s AALE Conference in Cologne, Chris has talked to a lot of people from different German universities. We’re hoping to get at least a hand full of them on board too. 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) In the next few months we are expecting to spread the word and hopefully grow the community due to the tech magazine articles as well as several talks on different conferences. How has the project developed since the last report? The work on the RawSocket Netty transport which is a requirement to implement protocols that are IP based, but are not TCP or UDP has continued and we are currently waiting for infra to setup a dedicated Jenkins VM for our project so we can enable the RawSocket releated tests. We have finished a first version of the Beckhoff ADS driver, and are looking forward to first tests with this. The functionality of the S7 driver has improved due to experience collected with the Kampf POC. Next we are aiming to implement Modbus and OPC-UA protocols. 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
