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Apache PLC4X announcing end of community support due to missing funding

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Re: Apache PLC4X announcing end of community support due to missing funding

#11

Post by ZiiS »

CaptainJustin wrote: post #9

This is dangerously close to being off-topic but it would be good to hear from people interested in PLC4X: I would really like to see home appliance manufacturers extend their products with a simple 2.n IO pin interface at the back. Absolutely minimal. For example: a kettle could have an input pin to turn it on/off and an output pin that just writes whether it is on or not. A simple 4-pin interface on the back in thi…

Adding physical connectors to mains voltage devices operated near water has significant costs. Wireless has managed to cater for this segment though still severely lacking standardization.

Re: Apache PLC4X announcing end of community support due to missing funding

#14

Post by ath0 »

charcircuit wrote: post #8

I thought this blog post ironic since it said stuff like "free trial of open source" and "Industry 4.0." I also think it's crazy that the government forces businesses to be profitable.

In a sense, the US government does the same thing. In the US tax code, you can can deduct business expenses to reduce taxes — ie, subtract expenses for a corporation you control from your personal income. This has been known be abused, as folks deduct their personal car, house, travel… as a result, if you have a business that goes long enough without a profit, the IRS will look really hard at it to make sure it’s not really leisure.

https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-utl/irc183activitiesnotengagedin...

Re: Apache PLC4X announcing end of community support due to missing funding

#15

Post by smarx007 »

I have observed two common reactions in companies not willing to sponsor open-source:

1. "Do you mean we will pay money to develop software for our competitors? Murder!"

2. The OSS donations are not seen as business expense but as charity. "We don't do charity."

What we found effective so far is an OSS project, a consulting company and a consulting arrangement where any modifications to the core project will be upstreamed. This way, the company pays money to solve their problem (and not competitors') and it's not seen as charity (it's consulting), while an OSS project goes on. Moreover, the OSS project is itself used as a selling point for the consulting services, as a proof that we will not lock the customer in with some proprietary framework.

Re: Apache PLC4X announcing end of community support due to missing funding

#16

Post by dmitriid »

ath0 wrote: post #14
charcircuit wrote: post #8

I thought this blog post ironic since it said stuff like "free trial of open source" and "Industry 4.0." I also think it's crazy that the government forces businesses to be profitable.

In a sense, the US government does the same thing. In the US tax code, you can can deduct business expenses to reduce taxes — ie, subtract expenses for a corporation you control from your personal income. This has been known be abused, as folks deduct their personal car, house, travel… as a result, if you have a business that goes long enough without a profit, the IRS will look really hard at it to make sure it’s not…

> if you have a business that goes long enough without a profit, the IRS will look really hard at it to make sure it’s not really leisure.

Uber lost 20 billion dollars in the last decade. Where's IRS?

Re: Apache PLC4X announcing end of community support due to missing funding

#17

Post by pfranz »

smarx007 wrote: post #15

I have observed two common reactions in companies not willing to sponsor open-source: 1. "Do you mean we will pay money to develop software for our competitors? Murder!" 2. The OSS donations are not seen as business expense but as charity. "We don't do charity." What we found effective so far is an OSS project, a consulting company and a consulting arrangement where any modifications to the core project will be upstr…

As a peon, I push for open source because I'm tired of doing the same thing at multiple jobs that have nothing to do with our competitive advantage. That goes for a lot of industry collaboration. So much money is quietly wasted on labor that could be saved by standards and open source projects existing.

Re: Apache PLC4X announcing end of community support due to missing funding

#18

Post by progbits »

pabs3 wrote: post #13

It seems like something that should be backed by an industry consortium; member companies pay money to the foundation and that employs the author and other folks to work on the code etc.

I'm probably missing something but why would the industry back this? This makes it easier to combine and switch between manufacturers while they probably prefer vendor lock-in. Once a factory starts using your PLC it will continue buying replacements and upgrades forever.

I only had brief exposure to this domain years ago, working on a single Siemens PLC control project. The whole software stack was utter garbage (GUI only tooling, binary blobs that don't work well with version control, weird custom subset of VB for the computer UI scripting, ...) that made me wish for some interface like PLC4X so I could just bypass all of it.

Re: Apache PLC4X announcing end of community support due to missing funding

#20

Post by pyb »

smarx007 wrote: post #15

I have observed two common reactions in companies not willing to sponsor open-source: 1. "Do you mean we will pay money to develop software for our competitors? Murder!" 2. The OSS donations are not seen as business expense but as charity. "We don't do charity." What we found effective so far is an OSS project, a consulting company and a consulting arrangement where any modifications to the core project will be upstr…

Who is "we"? Projects such as VLC tried the consulting approach, but didn't get the outcomes that they'd hoped for.
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