Back to business

[Patrick]

Great!!

Well I could write pages and pages on this. I will try to restrain 
myself. The abuse that Sébastien eluted to is common and just the tip of 
the iceberg. Many of my clients have had to pay 2K to have the software 
they just paid 15K for reloaded as the software uses key disks. The 
abuse is unreal, the anger is everywhere. The analytical instrument 
market is 26 billion and is largely software driven, there is a market here!

My project name is code-read(pronounced code-red, as in I read the code) 
I own code-read.com and code-read.org. There is no content loaded yet, 
please check back in 2-3 weeks.

The App will be GTK based and will offer support for instrument 
communication via serial and GPIB.

I have thousands of dollars in closed source software and hardware to 
use with the engineering process. I can program in Python but I am just 
learning Ruby, C, PHP and Lua.

I want to make a solid base probably in C that will provide the core 
instrument communication and I would like to offer front-ends in various 
languages. I want the scientists themselves to get involved in the 
process to improve and modify it for there needs. I think scripting 
languages fulfill this need better then compiled ones.

The App will have to be cross platform to begin with, Linux is 
completely absent from nearly all labs at the moment.

I am presently hammering out the blueprint for this project with other 
developers, primarily on the gtk-app-devel-list. This has proven to be 
no small task. I have been planning this for some time now.

I will be posting a list of template Apps to use to code-read.org soon 
and a diagram of the block structure.

Apart from the basic communication and mathematical functions I am also 
considering several other ideas which may or may not be crazy.

I want modify or embed the Gobby editor in the App. I want the serial 
and GPIB ports to act as clients witting to Gobby, through a log file. 
Apart from remotely debugging it will also provide a means through which 
others can view the output of the closed source App and threw which the 
open source one can be modified. I want this application to have the the 
on-board tools required for others to continue the work without me, if 
needed. This App could also be used to remotely reverse engineer 
scanners and printers and all manner of devices for the greater Linux 
community. I also want to offer it on a live-CD. I have other ideas too.

I will add a wiki and blog to code-read.org soon as well. I would love 
feedback after it is complete.

Somethings that I need help with is setting up a versioning system, 
finding out how to get the App into the distro repositories and covering 
the legal aspects of this. I will need to move carefully with this as I 
don't have enough funds to fight a full scale lawsuit. I will avoid this 
by cautious use of trade names. All the other closed source people are 
controlling each others instruments and using each others trade names so 
it probably won't be a problem but just in case I intend to use drawings 
rather then trade names to demonstrate the instruments that can be 
controlled.

GPIB is a strange communication protocol rarely used outside of test and 
measurement equipment and lab instruments. It is however omni-present in 
labs. Presently GPIB support under Linux requires recompiling the 
kernel. If the project was a success, a GPIB Ubuntu ready version would 
really help. It would of course need to be an option and not bundled in 
the main package.

I am caught in a catch-22 right now. I am a one man operation working 
70+ hours a week refurbishing lab instruments but slave to the closed 
source Apps that haunt my business too. I need to break free and 
complete this project but I can only spare 10-15 hours a week.

I need all the help i can get. If no one minds I would love to post 
again about this once code-read.org is fully functional.

Thanks for your support Sébastien!