Positive mention in I&CS editorial

K

Thread Starter

Ken Crater

I just received the February issue of I&CS magazine, which contains an editorial by Editor in Chief Ron Kuhfeld entitled "Keep an eye on Linux". In it, he points out the rising market share of Linux, as well as its gradual encroachment into the controls market. He mentions our project, and notes some of the progress we have made in terms of discussions on data types, I/O drivers, languages, etc., while rightly noting that we are still defining ourselves. Although he counsels a "wait and see" attitude toward Linux, all in all it's a very positive treatment of the subject (and, he
references the linuxplc.org web address).

I noticed we had some new subscribers to the list today -- I suspect that this write-up is the reason!

Ken Crater, President
Control.com Inc.
[email protected]

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C

Curt Wuollet

Great!

Thanks, Ron, if you're lurking.

I did a Q&A email interview for I&CS, I wonder if this is in addition to that or an editorial replacement? The folks who counsel a wait and see attitude are doing their readers a disservice IMHO, I have been watching the embedded and appliance development scene and Linux is getting some big wins. I wouldn't be surprised if we were aced out by a hardware PLC running Linux soon. It would be a no brainer to web-enable the more recent PLC's or build a new line with very little IP cost. I have seriously considered building intelligent/ distributed IO with cots components to meet the coming demand for Ethernet
based protos. I have opted for Opto22 for now, but a Linux based product is easily doable. If we keep the LinuxPLC code small and tight, there are
low cost sbc's in small form factors that could run it. I'm looking at a few of these to make my PC based test equipment embedded and standalone.
Right now, I could lower the cost by > 50%. Linux has a very bright future in automation and controls from what I can see. Very soon you will
see a lot of consumer products running on Penguin Power.

Regards,

Curt Wuollet
Wide Open Technologies


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H

Harald Albrecht

Curt Wuollet <[email protected]> wrote:

> I wouldn't be surprised if we were aced out by a hardware PLC running Linux soon. <

Ahhh - that reminds me of a small company right here in Aachen, Germany which is called "Fraenz & Jaeger":

http://www.fraenz-jaeger.de/

Unfortunately that's a frame-only site, so click on the stars & stripes to get the english version (not sure about what the bowler hats and the cangaroos think about this...).

Since last autumn they sell an industrial PC (486, 8Meg flash) mountable on DIN rails. The PC runs RTLinux together with some IEC1131 interpreter (it seems).

Harald

--
Harald Albrecht
Chair of Process Control Engineering
Aachen University of Technology
Turmstrasse 46, D-52064 Aachen, Germany
Tel.: +49 241 80-7703, Fax: +49 241 8888-238
email: [email protected]-aachen.de

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Curt: The Ron Kuhfeld editorial is unrelated to the interview questions I sent you--those are for my May PLC article.

Ken: Ron's editorial is his take on the news item I wrote up. The news item was decorated with the Puffin picture, but that got lost when the piece got folded into the editorial. I didn't think it would be a good idea to suggest to Ron that he replace his picture with the Puffin.

Pete Cleaveland
I&CS

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