Experimental Physics and
Industrial Control System

Andrew Johnson <[email protected]> · Fri, 20 Jul 2018 17:13:56 -0500

On 07/20/2018 03:04 AM, Michael Davidsaver wrote:
> I didn't solicit input from a certain committee.  Several
> of the individuals, yes.  But I only presented the results.

That "certain committee" is the group of your fellow collaborators, who
really don't want to have to write down rules for how the group should
work, we just want to develop software like you do. This complaint also
has nothing to do with inter-personal relationships within the group,
which I don't intend to discuss in public.

To quote Larry Lessig "code is speech," and EPICS Base is published
(spoken) by the group as a whole, not just by the specific individuals
who create and maintain its parts. By adding new APIs to pvAccessCPP
without first discussing them with the group, you are using our voice to
speak without letting us have any input into what "we" are saying.

I can't think of any other recent significant addition to EPICS Base or
EPICS V4 where a facility was added without it first being discussed
with the group one way or another. Unfortunately human nature being what
it is, your doing that makes us (hopefully unnecessarily) suspicious of
your motivations and concerned for what else you might slip into the
code in the future without consulting us.

You will recall that I presented my plug-in API concept at the last
Hangout, and the group told me "No, or don't do it like that." I could
have just implemented my design instead and added it to libCom without
asking, and most likely nobody would have even noticed until it was
already being used. Instead I spent my Saturday coming up with that
conceptual design document.

Moving your pva/server API out into a separate module might help to
level the playing field, restore trust and alleviate some concerns about
your future work plans. If you wanted that API/module to be included in
future EPICS Base releases then you would need to present it to the
group. Since the pva/client API would be much harder to unbundle at this
point, I would like you to present that API at our meeting at ESS in
September, and if you wanted to maintain both the client and server APIs
in the same in-tree module you could combine the two presentations into one.

- Andrew

-- 
Arguing for surveillance because you have nothing to hide is no
different than making the claim, "I don't care about freedom of
speech because I have nothing to say." -- Edward Snowdon

Experimental Physics and Industrial Control System

Experimental Physics and
Industrial Control System