Re: [Emc-developers] Ethercat Working Group

[gene heskett]

On 2/18/23 19:28, Rod Webster wrote:

Progress has been slow with  the kernel stuff. I was able to build a non
PREEMPT_RT image for the Odroid N2++ and get it to boot yesterday.
Initially you need to boot from petitboot which sits on flash storage.
Step 2, adding the PREEMPT_RT patches failed after that.  It seems the
armbian kernel 6.1 is a bit behind kernel.org so some of the patches from
November failed.

Kernel 6.2 is released today. My plan is to move to Armbian Edge which
already runs the 6.2 kernel before continuing. I need to get that sorted
bere trying xenomai

Gene, the Armbian build environment is run on an amd64 environment. I have
to say playing with kernels has shown you need a PC with 8-10 cores to get
it done in a reasonable time which is something my 10 year old i7 does not
have!

My rpi4 can build lcnc from git, buster master branch in around an hour 
the last time I fired it off a couple months ago, but probably slower 
today with all the new gfx in the docs. The docs take way more time than 
lcnc.


I haven't actually built a new, running kernel in going on 3 years, but 
I've built what I'm running in a bit over an hour. My build environment 
is on a 240 gig SSD on the usb3 adaptor, so the only traffic for all 
that does not touch the u-sd it boots from unless I install the debs it 
makes for linuxcnc.


This is the kernel I built in Fed 2020:
Linux rpi4.coyote.den 4.19.71-rt24-v7l+ #1 SMP PREEMPT RT Thu Feb 6 
07:09:18 EST 2020 armv7l GNU/Linux


latency-test shows about 12 u-secs for the 1khz servo-thread unless FF 
is running, FF is a pig but you knew that. Even watching youtube the 
lathe rarely stutters. but latency will hit 200 u-secs pretty easy then.


I have a standby and a small ups on the pi, so I determine uptimes, it 
has never crashed,

pi@rpi4:~ $ uptime
 01:38:13 up 124 days, 12:17,  3 users,  load average: 0.46, 0.34, 0.26

I hope the next one I build is as stable.

Anyway, that 240g is about half full and I can clear out whatever it 
take to make a new test mule out of it. Probably 100g of non-precious stuff.



Rod Webster
*1300 896 832*
+61 435 765 611
Vehicle Modifications Network
www.vehiclemods.net.au


On Sun, 19 Feb 2023 at 03:15, gene heskett  wrote:


On 2/18/23 11:31, Small Shop Concepts wrote:

That sounds awesome Rod!  I am interested in your Xenomai 4 test results.

On Fri, Feb 10, 2023 at 3:53 AM Rod Webster  wrote:


I was lucky enough to attend an Ethercat working group seminar today in
Brisbane, Australia where German based Martin Rostan,  Executive

Director

from the EtherCAT Technology Group (ETG) was the main presenter.

It was all very interesting and the detailed low level description of
ethercat packets and alternatives based on TCP makes Ethercat streets in
front of other alternatives because of the sheer efficiency of the
protocol. This let me understand the issues causing the error finishing
read error being experienced with hm2eth connected devices (ie mesa
ethernet cards) in later kernels (5.10 and above).

I was also able to speak with Martin about the licensing issue
preventing us from including the Linuxcnc ethercat driver in our
distribution and have a greater understanding of the problem. Their
license requires users of an ethercat master (in this case the iGh

Etherlab

master we use) to become members of the ETG (which is free). Anybody
selling machines would need to adhere to this. So technically, we can't

put

that condition on to our terms because the existing GPL licence
from Linuxcnc propagates to the ethercat driver. He did go on to say

that

they would never take action against somebody promoting use of ethercat
masters.

So back to the error finishing read problem (that can't be solved by

wide

scale adoption of ethercat), I recently purchased an Odroid N2+ Arm

based

PC which arrived today. I was hoping the different platform may improve
network latency. I have been able to compile an Armbian bookworm image
which booted OK.  A user on the Armbian forum  is willing to help me

with

building a PREEMPT_RT image following this prerequisite first step. but

his

main interest is in Xenomai 4 and he is keen to help me subsequently

build

Xenomai for the N2+.  Xenomai seems to have a significant advantage over
PREEMPT_RT re latency. Given we already support Xenomai 3, I am hoping

it

will be a fairly simple matter to support xenomai 4 and build a test for
network latency to look at differences between xenomai and preempt_rt.

So I am sure progress will be slow, but I am hopeful we will come up

with a

solution to error finishing read!

I hope some of you are interested in this ChatGPT free update!

Rod Webster


I too would be interested in Xenomai 4 as applied to armhf/arm64 stuff.
The kernel I first built as preempt-rt for the pi's has been decent but
is getting long in the tooth and although the installation of it on
armhf stuff is dead simple, its not really well fitting into the apt
update scheme, apt in fact ignores 

Re: [Emc-developers] Ethercat Working Group

[Rod Webster]

Progress has been slow with  the kernel stuff. I was able to build a non
PREEMPT_RT image for the Odroid N2++ and get it to boot yesterday.
Initially you need to boot from petitboot which sits on flash storage.
Step 2, adding the PREEMPT_RT patches failed after that.  It seems the
armbian kernel 6.1 is a bit behind kernel.org so some of the patches from
November failed.

Kernel 6.2 is released today. My plan is to move to Armbian Edge which
already runs the 6.2 kernel before continuing. I need to get that sorted
bere trying xenomai

Gene, the Armbian build environment is run on an amd64 environment. I have
to say playing with kernels has shown you need a PC with 8-10 cores to get
it done in a reasonable time which is something my 10 year old i7 does not
have!

Rod Webster
*1300 896 832*
+61 435 765 611
Vehicle Modifications Network
www.vehiclemods.net.au


On Sun, 19 Feb 2023 at 03:15, gene heskett  wrote:

> On 2/18/23 11:31, Small Shop Concepts wrote:
> > That sounds awesome Rod!  I am interested in your Xenomai 4 test results.
> >
> > On Fri, Feb 10, 2023 at 3:53 AM Rod Webster  wrote:
> >>
> >> I was lucky enough to attend an Ethercat working group seminar today in
> >> Brisbane, Australia where German based Martin Rostan,  Executive
> Director
> >> from the EtherCAT Technology Group (ETG) was the main presenter.
> >>
> >> It was all very interesting and the detailed low level description of
> >> ethercat packets and alternatives based on TCP makes Ethercat streets in
> >> front of other alternatives because of the sheer efficiency of the
> >> protocol. This let me understand the issues causing the error finishing
> >> read error being experienced with hm2eth connected devices (ie mesa
> >> ethernet cards) in later kernels (5.10 and above).
> >>
> >> I was also able to speak with Martin about the licensing issue
> >> preventing us from including the Linuxcnc ethercat driver in our
> >> distribution and have a greater understanding of the problem. Their
> >> license requires users of an ethercat master (in this case the iGh
> Etherlab
> >> master we use) to become members of the ETG (which is free). Anybody
> >> selling machines would need to adhere to this. So technically, we can't
> put
> >> that condition on to our terms because the existing GPL licence
> >> from Linuxcnc propagates to the ethercat driver. He did go on to say
> that
> >> they would never take action against somebody promoting use of ethercat
> >> masters.
> >>
> >> So back to the error finishing read problem (that can't be solved by
> wide
> >> scale adoption of ethercat), I recently purchased an Odroid N2+ Arm
> based
> >> PC which arrived today. I was hoping the different platform may improve
> >> network latency. I have been able to compile an Armbian bookworm image
> >> which booted OK.  A user on the Armbian forum  is willing to help me
> with
> >> building a PREEMPT_RT image following this prerequisite first step. but
> his
> >> main interest is in Xenomai 4 and he is keen to help me subsequently
> build
> >> Xenomai for the N2+.  Xenomai seems to have a significant advantage over
> >> PREEMPT_RT re latency. Given we already support Xenomai 3, I am hoping
> it
> >> will be a fairly simple matter to support xenomai 4 and build a test for
> >> network latency to look at differences between xenomai and preempt_rt.
> >>
> >> So I am sure progress will be slow, but I am hopeful we will come up
> with a
> >> solution to error finishing read!
> >>
> >> I hope some of you are interested in this ChatGPT free update!
> >>
> >> Rod Webster
> >>
> I too would be interested in Xenomai 4 as applied to armhf/arm64 stuff.
> The kernel I first built as preempt-rt for the pi's has been decent but
> is getting long in the tooth and although the installation of it on
> armhf stuff is dead simple, its not really well fitting into the apt
> update scheme, apt in fact ignores it. And while it can & does install
> new kernels, it does not disable mine. So its safe to sudo apt update etc.
>
> I am equipt to build kernels on my rpi4, or linuxcnc.  And I keep
> linuxcnc uptodate from github here. So I can supply another native build
> environment for testing.  Just ask.
>
> >> VMN®
> >>
> >> www.vmn.com.au
> >>
> >> Ph: 1300 896 832
> >>
> >> Mob: +61 435 765 611
> >>
> >> ___
> >> Emc-developers mailing list
> >> Emc-developers@lists.sourceforge.net
> >> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-developers
> >
> >
> > ___
> > Emc-developers mailing list
> > Emc-developers@lists.sourceforge.net
> > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-developers
>
> Cheers, Gene Heskett.
> --
> "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
>   soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
> -Ed Howdershelt (Author, 1940)
> If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.
>   - Louis D. Brandeis
> Genes Web page 

Re: [Emc-developers] Ethercat Working Group

[gene heskett]

On 2/18/23 11:31, Small Shop Concepts wrote:

That sounds awesome Rod!  I am interested in your Xenomai 4 test results.

On Fri, Feb 10, 2023 at 3:53 AM Rod Webster  wrote:


I was lucky enough to attend an Ethercat working group seminar today in
Brisbane, Australia where German based Martin Rostan,  Executive Director
from the EtherCAT Technology Group (ETG) was the main presenter.

It was all very interesting and the detailed low level description of
ethercat packets and alternatives based on TCP makes Ethercat streets in
front of other alternatives because of the sheer efficiency of the
protocol. This let me understand the issues causing the error finishing
read error being experienced with hm2eth connected devices (ie mesa
ethernet cards) in later kernels (5.10 and above).

I was also able to speak with Martin about the licensing issue
preventing us from including the Linuxcnc ethercat driver in our
distribution and have a greater understanding of the problem. Their
license requires users of an ethercat master (in this case the iGh Etherlab
master we use) to become members of the ETG (which is free). Anybody
selling machines would need to adhere to this. So technically, we can't put
that condition on to our terms because the existing GPL licence
from Linuxcnc propagates to the ethercat driver. He did go on to say that
they would never take action against somebody promoting use of ethercat
masters.

So back to the error finishing read problem (that can't be solved by wide
scale adoption of ethercat), I recently purchased an Odroid N2+ Arm based
PC which arrived today. I was hoping the different platform may improve
network latency. I have been able to compile an Armbian bookworm image
which booted OK.  A user on the Armbian forum  is willing to help me with
building a PREEMPT_RT image following this prerequisite first step. but his
main interest is in Xenomai 4 and he is keen to help me subsequently build
Xenomai for the N2+.  Xenomai seems to have a significant advantage over
PREEMPT_RT re latency. Given we already support Xenomai 3, I am hoping it
will be a fairly simple matter to support xenomai 4 and build a test for
network latency to look at differences between xenomai and preempt_rt.

So I am sure progress will be slow, but I am hopeful we will come up with a
solution to error finishing read!

I hope some of you are interested in this ChatGPT free update!

Rod Webster

I too would be interested in Xenomai 4 as applied to armhf/arm64 stuff. 
The kernel I first built as preempt-rt for the pi's has been decent but 
is getting long in the tooth and although the installation of it on 
armhf stuff is dead simple, its not really well fitting into the apt 
update scheme, apt in fact ignores it. And while it can & does install 
new kernels, it does not disable mine. So its safe to sudo apt update etc.


I am equipt to build kernels on my rpi4, or linuxcnc.  And I keep 
linuxcnc uptodate from github here. So I can supply another native build 
environment for testing.  Just ask.



VMN®

www.vmn.com.au

Ph: 1300 896 832

Mob: +61 435 765 611

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Cheers, Gene Heskett.
--
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author, 1940)
If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.
 - Louis D. Brandeis
Genes Web page 



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Re: [Emc-developers] Ethercat Working Group

[Small Shop Concepts]

That sounds awesome Rod!  I am interested in your Xenomai 4 test results.

On Fri, Feb 10, 2023 at 3:53 AM Rod Webster  wrote:
>
> I was lucky enough to attend an Ethercat working group seminar today in
> Brisbane, Australia where German based Martin Rostan,  Executive Director
> from the EtherCAT Technology Group (ETG) was the main presenter.
>
> It was all very interesting and the detailed low level description of
> ethercat packets and alternatives based on TCP makes Ethercat streets in
> front of other alternatives because of the sheer efficiency of the
> protocol. This let me understand the issues causing the error finishing
> read error being experienced with hm2eth connected devices (ie mesa
> ethernet cards) in later kernels (5.10 and above).
>
> I was also able to speak with Martin about the licensing issue
> preventing us from including the Linuxcnc ethercat driver in our
> distribution and have a greater understanding of the problem. Their
> license requires users of an ethercat master (in this case the iGh Etherlab
> master we use) to become members of the ETG (which is free). Anybody
> selling machines would need to adhere to this. So technically, we can't put
> that condition on to our terms because the existing GPL licence
> from Linuxcnc propagates to the ethercat driver. He did go on to say that
> they would never take action against somebody promoting use of ethercat
> masters.
>
> So back to the error finishing read problem (that can't be solved by wide
> scale adoption of ethercat), I recently purchased an Odroid N2+ Arm based
> PC which arrived today. I was hoping the different platform may improve
> network latency. I have been able to compile an Armbian bookworm image
> which booted OK.  A user on the Armbian forum  is willing to help me with
> building a PREEMPT_RT image following this prerequisite first step. but his
> main interest is in Xenomai 4 and he is keen to help me subsequently build
> Xenomai for the N2+.  Xenomai seems to have a significant advantage over
> PREEMPT_RT re latency. Given we already support Xenomai 3, I am hoping it
> will be a fairly simple matter to support xenomai 4 and build a test for
> network latency to look at differences between xenomai and preempt_rt.
>
> So I am sure progress will be slow, but I am hopeful we will come up with a
> solution to error finishing read!
>
> I hope some of you are interested in this ChatGPT free update!
>
> Rod Webster
>
> VMN®
>
> www.vmn.com.au
>
> Ph: 1300 896 832
>
> Mob: +61 435 765 611
>
> ___
> Emc-developers mailing list
> Emc-developers@lists.sourceforge.net
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-developers


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[Emc-developers] Ethercat Working Group

[Rod Webster]

I was lucky enough to attend an Ethercat working group seminar today in
Brisbane, Australia where German based Martin Rostan,  Executive Director
from the EtherCAT Technology Group (ETG) was the main presenter.

It was all very interesting and the detailed low level description of
ethercat packets and alternatives based on TCP makes Ethercat streets in
front of other alternatives because of the sheer efficiency of the
protocol. This let me understand the issues causing the error finishing
read error being experienced with hm2eth connected devices (ie mesa
ethernet cards) in later kernels (5.10 and above).

I was also able to speak with Martin about the licensing issue
preventing us from including the Linuxcnc ethercat driver in our
distribution and have a greater understanding of the problem. Their
license requires users of an ethercat master (in this case the iGh Etherlab
master we use) to become members of the ETG (which is free). Anybody
selling machines would need to adhere to this. So technically, we can't put
that condition on to our terms because the existing GPL licence
from Linuxcnc propagates to the ethercat driver. He did go on to say that
they would never take action against somebody promoting use of ethercat
masters.

So back to the error finishing read problem (that can't be solved by wide
scale adoption of ethercat), I recently purchased an Odroid N2+ Arm based
PC which arrived today. I was hoping the different platform may improve
network latency. I have been able to compile an Armbian bookworm image
which booted OK.  A user on the Armbian forum  is willing to help me with
building a PREEMPT_RT image following this prerequisite first step. but his
main interest is in Xenomai 4 and he is keen to help me subsequently build
Xenomai for the N2+.  Xenomai seems to have a significant advantage over
PREEMPT_RT re latency. Given we already support Xenomai 3, I am hoping it
will be a fairly simple matter to support xenomai 4 and build a test for
network latency to look at differences between xenomai and preempt_rt.

So I am sure progress will be slow, but I am hopeful we will come up with a
solution to error finishing read!

I hope some of you are interested in this ChatGPT free update!

Rod Webster

VMN®

www.vmn.com.au

Ph: 1300 896 832

Mob: +61 435 765 611

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Re: [Emc-developers] EtherCAT - would not be a prob with free membership in EtherCAT Technology Group Re: LinuxCNC is in Debian!

[Jérémie Tarot]

Hi,

Le jeu. 17 mars 2022 à 18:13, Joseph Spanier  a écrit :

> Hey Guys,
> I am close to Tormach and actively working with them on their ROS driven
> robot.


Great!
They also use machinekit-hal for it, right?

If someone can concisely frame the situation and detail what you
> need I'd be happy to make an intro with Rogge. I tried to find a clear
> thread of this discussion on sourceforge that I could just forward to them
> but I couldn't find one.
>

Is that better that that SF crap?
https://www.mail-archive.com/emc-developers@lists.sourceforge.net/msg22354.html

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Re: [Emc-developers] EtherCAT - would not be a prob with free membership in EtherCAT Technology Group Re: LinuxCNC is in Debian!

[Joseph Spanier]

Hey Guys,
I am close to Tormach and actively working with them on their ROS driven
robot. If someone can concisely frame the situation and detail what you
need I'd be happy to make an intro with Rogge. I tried to find a clear
thread of this discussion on sourceforge that I could just forward to them
but I couldn't find one.

Thanks
Joe

On Fri, Mar 4, 2022 at 1:17 AM Jérémie Tarot  wrote:

> Le ven. 4 mars 2022 à 02:13, Rod Webster  a
> écrit :
>
> > >  Anyone close to ROS?
> > Tormach. Anyone close to Tormach?
> >
>
>
> Maybe open a friendly issue/discussion there
>
> https://github.com/tormach/hal_ros_control
>
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Re: [Emc-developers] EtherCAT - would not be a prob with free membership in EtherCAT Technology Group Re: LinuxCNC is in Debian!

[Jérémie Tarot]

Le ven. 4 mars 2022 à 02:13, Rod Webster  a écrit :

> >  Anyone close to ROS?
> Tormach. Anyone close to Tormach?
>


Maybe open a friendly issue/discussion there

https://github.com/tormach/hal_ros_control

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Re: [Emc-developers] EtherCAT - would not be a prob with free membership in EtherCAT Technology Group Re: LinuxCNC is in Debian!

[gene heskett]

On Thursday, 3 March 2022 19:55:07 EST Rod Webster wrote:
> >Some of us remember when the EMC corporation sent their lawyers
> >calling because we had a similar name to them. No matter that we had
> >it first.
> 
I'm one of them. And I was pissed at the audacity of a bookkeeper who was 
a johnny come lately not even worthy of capitalizing the J.
OTOH, it did force a more useful name on us. So it wasn't all bad.

> Before my time.
> There are plenty of examples where the user of an untrademarked name
> has had to cease and desist after another organization trademarks a
> word already in use.
> Even to the extent of an Australian  Winemaker called Chardon being
> taken to task by Moet and Chandon to name a small local example.
> Or Aussie made Ugg Boots losing the name to  a US trademark... which
> was the blatant hijacking of a product.
> 
> That's why I hold a trademark of my brand.
> 
> This is quite different as we are not purporting to be Ethercat or
> trading as Ethercat. We are just talking about licensing where credit
> has to be given. Its not even close to the EMC example.
> 
> 
> Rod Webster
> *1300 896 832*
> +61 435 765 611
> Vehicle Modifications Network
> www.vehiclemods.net.au
> 
> On Fri, 4 Mar 2022 at 10:37, andy pugh  wrote:
> > On Thu, 3 Mar 2022 at 16:17, gene heskett  
wrote:
> > > I don't see the future risk as zero...
> > 
> > Some of us remember when the EMC corporation sent their lawyers
> > calling because we had a similar name to them. No matter that we had
> > it first.
> > 
> > Beckhof have been very clear that they own the word EtherCAT, we
> > wouldn't even have the same wiggle room we had last time (and last
> > time we were in the right and still stood little chance)
> > 
> > --
> > atp
> > "A motorcycle is a bicycle with a pandemonium attachment and is
> > designed for the especial use of mechanical geniuses, daredevils and
> > lunatics."
> > — George Fitch, Atlanta Constitution Newspaper, 1912
> > 
> > 
> > ___
> > Emc-developers mailing list
> > Emc-developers@lists.sourceforge.net
> > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-developers
> 
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Cheers, Gene Heskett.
-- 
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author, 1940)
If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.
 - Louis D. Brandeis





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Re: [Emc-developers] EtherCAT - would not be a prob with free membership in EtherCAT Technology Group Re: LinuxCNC is in Debian!

[Stefan Asmus]

Below is Daniel Rogge ( Tormach CEO) email. He seems happy to correspond via 
email to people who have questions about their products. I have spoken to him 
about the software for their new ZA6 robot and he was happy to answer questions.

dro...@tormach.com

From: Rod Webster 
Sent: Friday, 4 March 2022 12:11 PM
To: EMC developers 
Subject: Re: [Emc-developers] EtherCAT - would not be a prob with free 
membership in EtherCAT Technology Group Re: LinuxCNC is in Debian!

>  Anyone close to ROS?
Tormach. Anyone close to Tormach?

Rod Webster
*1300 896 832*
+61 435 765 611
Vehicle Modifications Network
www.vehiclemods.net.au<http://www.vehiclemods.net.au>


On Fri, 4 Mar 2022 at 11:07, Steffen Möller  wrote:

> Rod,
>
> I wish some of our LinuxCNC Gurus would know some of the ROS Gurus and
> jointly meditate over this. We should possibly not discuss this too much
> as a sole CNC/robotics problem. This tech is useful whenever you need to
> synchronize something between multiple machines/devices.
>
> I truly don't know what we should be doing as a community. Anyone close
> to ROS?
>
> Best,
> Steffen
>
>
> On 03.03.22 20:55, Rod Webster wrote:
> > Steffen
> >
> > You have done some amazing work and we now know what we are dealing with
> > rather than just guessing as we've done before.
> >
> > I think its not about the last 20 years but about the next 20. I think we
> > will see an increasing number of ethercat capable devices in use as more
> > vendors adopt the technology.
> > There are also an increasing number of linuxcnc users using the software
> on
> > commercial projects and retrofits of commercial machines.
> >
> > ROS appear to be simply embedding the SOEM in a sub folder in their
> > ethercat master wrapper based on an article they link to in the readme. I
> > guess they can do this under  the GPL.
> >
> > Any restrictions appear to be placed on users of the technology, not the
> > software developer. Linuxcnc does not use software, our members do. This
> is
> > an important distinction.
> > I think this allows Linuxcnc to treat the proposed driver as being GPL'd
> at
> > a distribution level like ROS has.
> >
> > Now we know of the SOEM's existence, it would be preferable to use it
> over
> > the IgH ethercat master if it's compatible with our architecture. It's a
> > much tighter integration then.
> >
> > It's clear that membership is not required. I can't see any impediment to
> > building a separate repository like has been done with mesaflash that
> > embeds the SOEM like ROS has done. If the rules change, it will be simple
> > to excise the orphaned child or just remove the SOEM subfolder.
> >
> >
> > Rod Webster
> > *1300 896 832*
> > +61 435 765 611
> > Vehicle Modifications Network
> > www.vehiclemods.net.au<http://www.vehiclemods.net.au>
> >
> >
> > On Fri, 4 Mar 2022 at 02:22, Steffen Möller 
> wrote:
> >
> >> Hi Marc,
> >>
> >> yes, something like http://wiki.ros.org/soem ? I have not followed that
> >> up.
> >>
> >> Best,
> >> Steffen
> >>
> >> On 03.03.22 16:54, Marc Wang wrote:
> >>> Hi Steffen,
> >>>
> >>> By ROS, are you referring to Robotic Operating System (
> >> https://www.ros.org/)?
> >>>
> >>> Regards,
> >>> Marc
> >>>
> >>> 
> >>> From: andy pugh 
> >>> Sent: Thursday, March 3, 2022 10:49 AM
> >>> To: EMC developers 
> >>> Subject: Re: [Emc-developers] EtherCAT - would not be a prob with free
> >> membership in EtherCAT Technology Group Re: LinuxCNC is in Debian!
> >>> On Thu, 3 Mar 2022 at 15:14, Steffen Möller 
> >> wrote:
> >>>> But he took the freedom to point out that there are others who
> >>>> are already shipping EtherCAT drivers and have not experienced any
> legal
> >>>> problem at all - he just cannot make any promises of any sorts about
> the
> >>>> future
> >>> There is quite a gap between "we don't plan to turn evil" and "we
> >>> promise not to turn evil"
> >>>
> >>> --
> >>> atp
> >>> "A motorcycle is a bicycle with a pandemonium attachment and is
> >>> designed for the especial use of mechanical geniuses, daredevils and
> >>> lunatics."
> >>> — George Fitch, Atlanta Constitution Newspaper, 1912
> >>>
&g

Re: [Emc-developers] EtherCAT - would not be a prob with free membership in EtherCAT Technology Group Re: LinuxCNC is in Debian!

[Rod Webster]

>  Anyone close to ROS?
Tormach. Anyone close to Tormach?

Rod Webster
*1300 896 832*
+61 435 765 611
Vehicle Modifications Network
www.vehiclemods.net.au


On Fri, 4 Mar 2022 at 11:07, Steffen Möller  wrote:

> Rod,
>
> I wish some of our LinuxCNC Gurus would know some of the ROS Gurus and
> jointly meditate over this. We should possibly not discuss this too much
> as a sole CNC/robotics problem. This tech is useful whenever you need to
> synchronize something between multiple machines/devices.
>
> I truly don't know what we should be doing as a community. Anyone close
> to ROS?
>
> Best,
> Steffen
>
>
> On 03.03.22 20:55, Rod Webster wrote:
> > Steffen
> >
> > You have done some amazing work and we now know what we are dealing with
> > rather than just guessing as we've done before.
> >
> > I think its not about the last 20 years but about the next 20. I think we
> > will see an increasing number of ethercat capable devices in use as more
> > vendors adopt the technology.
> > There are also an increasing number of linuxcnc users using the software
> on
> > commercial projects and retrofits of commercial machines.
> >
> > ROS appear to be simply embedding the SOEM in a sub folder in their
> > ethercat master wrapper based on an article they link to in the readme. I
> > guess they can do this under  the GPL.
> >
> > Any restrictions appear to be placed on users of the technology, not the
> > software developer. Linuxcnc does not use software, our members do. This
> is
> > an important distinction.
> > I think this allows Linuxcnc to treat the proposed driver as being GPL'd
> at
> > a distribution level like ROS has.
> >
> > Now we know of the SOEM's existence, it would be preferable to use it
> over
> > the IgH ethercat master if it's compatible with our architecture. It's a
> > much tighter integration then.
> >
> > It's clear that membership is not required. I can't see any impediment to
> > building a separate repository like has been done with mesaflash that
> > embeds the SOEM like ROS has done. If the rules change, it will be simple
> > to excise the orphaned child or just remove the SOEM subfolder.
> >
> >
> > Rod Webster
> > *1300 896 832*
> > +61 435 765 611
> > Vehicle Modifications Network
> > www.vehiclemods.net.au
> >
> >
> > On Fri, 4 Mar 2022 at 02:22, Steffen Möller 
> wrote:
> >
> >> Hi Marc,
> >>
> >> yes, something like http://wiki.ros.org/soem ? I have not followed that
> >> up.
> >>
> >> Best,
> >> Steffen
> >>
> >> On 03.03.22 16:54, Marc Wang wrote:
> >>> Hi Steffen,
> >>>
> >>> By ROS, are you referring to Robotic Operating System (
> >> https://www.ros.org/)?
> >>>
> >>> Regards,
> >>> Marc
> >>>
> >>> 
> >>> From: andy pugh 
> >>> Sent: Thursday, March 3, 2022 10:49 AM
> >>> To: EMC developers 
> >>> Subject: Re: [Emc-developers] EtherCAT - would not be a prob with free
> >> membership in EtherCAT Technology Group Re: LinuxCNC is in Debian!
> >>> On Thu, 3 Mar 2022 at 15:14, Steffen Möller 
> >> wrote:
> >>>> But he took the freedom to point out that there are others who
> >>>> are already shipping EtherCAT drivers and have not experienced any
> legal
> >>>> problem at all - he just cannot make any promises of any sorts about
> the
> >>>> future
> >>> There is quite a gap between "we don't plan to turn evil" and "we
> >>> promise not to turn evil"
> >>>
> >>> --
> >>> atp
> >>> "A motorcycle is a bicycle with a pandemonium attachment and is
> >>> designed for the especial use of mechanical geniuses, daredevils and
> >>> lunatics."
> >>> — George Fitch, Atlanta Constitution Newspaper, 1912
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> ___
> >>> Emc-developers mailing list
> >>> Emc-developers@lists.sourceforge.net
> >>> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-developers
> >>>
> >>> ___
> >>> Emc-developers mailing list
> >>> Emc-developers@lists.sourceforge.net
> >>> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-developers
> >>
> >> ___
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> >> Emc-developers@lists.sourceforge.net
> >> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-developers
> >>
> > ___
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>
>
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Re: [Emc-developers] EtherCAT - would not be a prob with free membership in EtherCAT Technology Group Re: LinuxCNC is in Debian!

[Steffen Möller]

Rod,

I wish some of our LinuxCNC Gurus would know some of the ROS Gurus and
jointly meditate over this. We should possibly not discuss this too much
as a sole CNC/robotics problem. This tech is useful whenever you need to
synchronize something between multiple machines/devices.

I truly don't know what we should be doing as a community. Anyone close
to ROS?

Best,
Steffen


On 03.03.22 20:55, Rod Webster wrote:

Steffen

You have done some amazing work and we now know what we are dealing with
rather than just guessing as we've done before.

I think its not about the last 20 years but about the next 20. I think we
will see an increasing number of ethercat capable devices in use as more
vendors adopt the technology.
There are also an increasing number of linuxcnc users using the software on
commercial projects and retrofits of commercial machines.

ROS appear to be simply embedding the SOEM in a sub folder in their
ethercat master wrapper based on an article they link to in the readme. I
guess they can do this under  the GPL.

Any restrictions appear to be placed on users of the technology, not the
software developer. Linuxcnc does not use software, our members do. This is
an important distinction.
I think this allows Linuxcnc to treat the proposed driver as being GPL'd at
a distribution level like ROS has.

Now we know of the SOEM's existence, it would be preferable to use it over
the IgH ethercat master if it's compatible with our architecture. It's a
much tighter integration then.

It's clear that membership is not required. I can't see any impediment to
building a separate repository like has been done with mesaflash that
embeds the SOEM like ROS has done. If the rules change, it will be simple
to excise the orphaned child or just remove the SOEM subfolder.


Rod Webster
*1300 896 832*
+61 435 765 611
Vehicle Modifications Network
www.vehiclemods.net.au


On Fri, 4 Mar 2022 at 02:22, Steffen Möller  wrote:


Hi Marc,

yes, something like http://wiki.ros.org/soem ? I have not followed that
up.

Best,
Steffen

On 03.03.22 16:54, Marc Wang wrote:

Hi Steffen,

By ROS, are you referring to Robotic Operating System (

https://www.ros.org/)?


Regards,
Marc


From: andy pugh 
Sent: Thursday, March 3, 2022 10:49 AM
To: EMC developers 
Subject: Re: [Emc-developers] EtherCAT - would not be a prob with free

membership in EtherCAT Technology Group Re: LinuxCNC is in Debian!

On Thu, 3 Mar 2022 at 15:14, Steffen Möller 

wrote:

But he took the freedom to point out that there are others who
are already shipping EtherCAT drivers and have not experienced any legal
problem at all - he just cannot make any promises of any sorts about the
future

There is quite a gap between "we don't plan to turn evil" and "we
promise not to turn evil"

--
atp
"A motorcycle is a bicycle with a pandemonium attachment and is
designed for the especial use of mechanical geniuses, daredevils and
lunatics."
— George Fitch, Atlanta Constitution Newspaper, 1912


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Re: [Emc-developers] EtherCAT - would not be a prob with free membership in EtherCAT Technology Group Re: LinuxCNC is in Debian!

[Rod Webster]

>Some of us remember when the EMC corporation sent their lawyers
>calling because we had a similar name to them. No matter that we had
>it first.

Before my time.
There are plenty of examples where the user of an untrademarked name has
had to cease and desist after another organization trademarks a word
already in use.
Even to the extent of an Australian  Winemaker called Chardon being taken
to task by Moet and Chandon to name a small local example.
Or Aussie made Ugg Boots losing the name to  a US trademark... which was
the blatant hijacking of a product.

That's why I hold a trademark of my brand.

This is quite different as we are not purporting to be Ethercat or
trading as Ethercat. We are just talking about licensing where credit has
to be given. Its not even close to the EMC example.


Rod Webster
*1300 896 832*
+61 435 765 611
Vehicle Modifications Network
www.vehiclemods.net.au


On Fri, 4 Mar 2022 at 10:37, andy pugh  wrote:

> On Thu, 3 Mar 2022 at 16:17, gene heskett  wrote:
>
> > I don't see the future risk as zero...
>
> Some of us remember when the EMC corporation sent their lawyers
> calling because we had a similar name to them. No matter that we had
> it first.
>
> Beckhof have been very clear that they own the word EtherCAT, we
> wouldn't even have the same wiggle room we had last time (and last
> time we were in the right and still stood little chance)
>
> --
> atp
> "A motorcycle is a bicycle with a pandemonium attachment and is
> designed for the especial use of mechanical geniuses, daredevils and
> lunatics."
> — George Fitch, Atlanta Constitution Newspaper, 1912
>
>
> ___
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Re: [Emc-developers] EtherCAT - would not be a prob with free membership in EtherCAT Technology Group Re: LinuxCNC is in Debian!

[andy pugh]

On Thu, 3 Mar 2022 at 16:17, gene heskett  wrote:

> I don't see the future risk as zero...

Some of us remember when the EMC corporation sent their lawyers
calling because we had a similar name to them. No matter that we had
it first.

Beckhof have been very clear that they own the word EtherCAT, we
wouldn't even have the same wiggle room we had last time (and last
time we were in the right and still stood little chance)

-- 
atp
"A motorcycle is a bicycle with a pandemonium attachment and is
designed for the especial use of mechanical geniuses, daredevils and
lunatics."
— George Fitch, Atlanta Constitution Newspaper, 1912


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Re: [Emc-developers] EtherCAT - would not be a prob with free membership in EtherCAT Technology Group Re: LinuxCNC is in Debian!

[Jérémie Tarot]

Le jeu. 3 mars 2022 à 16:14, Steffen Möller  a
écrit :

> Dear all,
>
> I had a phone conversation with the EtherCAT Technology Group's
> president, Martin Rostan, this morning.


Thanks a lot for taking care of this 


ETG's statutes (Satzung in German) do not allow non-legal entities to
> become members. Bummer.
>

Well, not that astonishing when you think about it.


I propose that we look into what ROS has come up with.


Let's hope they have infos to clarify this a bit...


Otherwise, I do

not know what this means for us, except to take care not to mix the
> EtherCAT codebase with the regular LinuxCNC.


Generally speaking, I think this should be the standard way of doing things
if we have to ship "foreign" code by ourselves.
Whether to put our glue in our main repository or in a separate one like
ROS...


To avoid paperwork that
> would not make much practical difference for anyone, we were discouraged
> to register a newly formed society that could be a member. But there may
> be other sorts of motivation to have something that can hold money for
> LinuxCNC. User meetings come to mind, and then this organization could
> also become a member as a side-event.
>

I'd fully support such an decision, like I support the just born FreeCAD
organization!

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Re: [Emc-developers] EtherCAT - would not be a prob with free membership in EtherCAT Technology Group Re: LinuxCNC is in Debian!

[Rod Webster]

Steffen

You have done some amazing work and we now know what we are dealing with
rather than just guessing as we've done before.

I think its not about the last 20 years but about the next 20. I think we
will see an increasing number of ethercat capable devices in use as more
vendors adopt the technology.
There are also an increasing number of linuxcnc users using the software on
commercial projects and retrofits of commercial machines.

ROS appear to be simply embedding the SOEM in a sub folder in their
ethercat master wrapper based on an article they link to in the readme. I
guess they can do this under  the GPL.

Any restrictions appear to be placed on users of the technology, not the
software developer. Linuxcnc does not use software, our members do. This is
an important distinction.
I think this allows Linuxcnc to treat the proposed driver as being GPL'd at
a distribution level like ROS has.

Now we know of the SOEM's existence, it would be preferable to use it over
the IgH ethercat master if it's compatible with our architecture. It's a
much tighter integration then.

It's clear that membership is not required. I can't see any impediment to
building a separate repository like has been done with mesaflash that
embeds the SOEM like ROS has done. If the rules change, it will be simple
to excise the orphaned child or just remove the SOEM subfolder.


Rod Webster
*1300 896 832*
+61 435 765 611
Vehicle Modifications Network
www.vehiclemods.net.au


On Fri, 4 Mar 2022 at 02:22, Steffen Möller  wrote:

> Hi Marc,
>
> yes, something like http://wiki.ros.org/soem ? I have not followed that
> up.
>
> Best,
> Steffen
>
> On 03.03.22 16:54, Marc Wang wrote:
> > Hi Steffen,
> >
> > By ROS, are you referring to Robotic Operating System (
> https://www.ros.org/)?
> >
> >
> > Regards,
> > Marc
> >
> > 
> > From: andy pugh 
> > Sent: Thursday, March 3, 2022 10:49 AM
> > To: EMC developers 
> > Subject: Re: [Emc-developers] EtherCAT - would not be a prob with free
> membership in EtherCAT Technology Group Re: LinuxCNC is in Debian!
> >
> > On Thu, 3 Mar 2022 at 15:14, Steffen Möller 
> wrote:
> >
> >> But he took the freedom to point out that there are others who
> >> are already shipping EtherCAT drivers and have not experienced any legal
> >> problem at all - he just cannot make any promises of any sorts about the
> >> future
> > There is quite a gap between "we don't plan to turn evil" and "we
> > promise not to turn evil"
> >
> > --
> > atp
> > "A motorcycle is a bicycle with a pandemonium attachment and is
> > designed for the especial use of mechanical geniuses, daredevils and
> > lunatics."
> > — George Fitch, Atlanta Constitution Newspaper, 1912
> >
> >
> > ___
> > Emc-developers mailing list
> > Emc-developers@lists.sourceforge.net
> > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-developers
> >
> > ___
> > Emc-developers mailing list
> > Emc-developers@lists.sourceforge.net
> > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-developers
>
>
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Re: [Emc-developers] EtherCAT - would not be a prob with free membership in EtherCAT Technology Group Re: LinuxCNC is in Debian!

[Steffen Möller]

Hi Marc,

yes, something like http://wiki.ros.org/soem ? I have not followed that up.

Best,
Steffen

On 03.03.22 16:54, Marc Wang wrote:

Hi Steffen,

By ROS, are you referring to Robotic Operating System (https://www.ros.org/)?


Regards,
Marc


From: andy pugh 
Sent: Thursday, March 3, 2022 10:49 AM
To: EMC developers 
Subject: Re: [Emc-developers] EtherCAT - would not be a prob with free 
membership in EtherCAT Technology Group Re: LinuxCNC is in Debian!

On Thu, 3 Mar 2022 at 15:14, Steffen Möller  wrote:


But he took the freedom to point out that there are others who
are already shipping EtherCAT drivers and have not experienced any legal
problem at all - he just cannot make any promises of any sorts about the
future

There is quite a gap between "we don't plan to turn evil" and "we
promise not to turn evil"

--
atp
"A motorcycle is a bicycle with a pandemonium attachment and is
designed for the especial use of mechanical geniuses, daredevils and
lunatics."
— George Fitch, Atlanta Constitution Newspaper, 1912


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Re: [Emc-developers] EtherCAT - would not be a prob with free membership in EtherCAT Technology Group Re: LinuxCNC is in Debian!

[gene heskett]

On Thursday, 3 March 2022 10:49:53 EST andy pugh wrote:
> On Thu, 3 Mar 2022 at 15:14, Steffen Möller  
wrote:
> > But he took the freedom to point out that there are others who
> > are already shipping EtherCAT drivers and have not experienced any
> > legal problem at all - he just cannot make any promises of any sorts
> > about the future
> 
> There is quite a gap between "we don't plan to turn evil" and "we
> promise not to turn evil"

Indeed Andy. At this point, we've done well w/o it for what, 20 years 
now?

I don't see the future risk as zero... Their restriction on gpl2, renders 
it null and void. Be wary, very wary.

Cheers, Gene Heskett.
-- 
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author, 1940)
If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.
 - Louis D. Brandeis
Genes Web page 





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Re: [Emc-developers] EtherCAT - would not be a prob with free membership in EtherCAT Technology Group Re: LinuxCNC is in Debian!

[Marc Wang]

Hi Steffen,

By ROS, are you referring to Robotic Operating System (https://www.ros.org/)?


Regards,
Marc


From: andy pugh 
Sent: Thursday, March 3, 2022 10:49 AM
To: EMC developers 
Subject: Re: [Emc-developers] EtherCAT - would not be a prob with free 
membership in EtherCAT Technology Group Re: LinuxCNC is in Debian!

On Thu, 3 Mar 2022 at 15:14, Steffen Möller  wrote:

> But he took the freedom to point out that there are others who
> are already shipping EtherCAT drivers and have not experienced any legal
> problem at all - he just cannot make any promises of any sorts about the
> future

There is quite a gap between "we don't plan to turn evil" and "we
promise not to turn evil"

--
atp
"A motorcycle is a bicycle with a pandemonium attachment and is
designed for the especial use of mechanical geniuses, daredevils and
lunatics."
— George Fitch, Atlanta Constitution Newspaper, 1912


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Re: [Emc-developers] EtherCAT - would not be a prob with free membership in EtherCAT Technology Group Re: LinuxCNC is in Debian!

[andy pugh]

On Thu, 3 Mar 2022 at 15:14, Steffen Möller  wrote:

> But he took the freedom to point out that there are others who
> are already shipping EtherCAT drivers and have not experienced any legal
> problem at all - he just cannot make any promises of any sorts about the
> future

There is quite a gap between "we don't plan to turn evil" and "we
promise not to turn evil"

-- 
atp
"A motorcycle is a bicycle with a pandemonium attachment and is
designed for the especial use of mechanical geniuses, daredevils and
lunatics."
— George Fitch, Atlanta Constitution Newspaper, 1912


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Re: [Emc-developers] EtherCAT - would not be a prob with free membership in EtherCAT Technology Group Re: LinuxCNC is in Debian!

[Steffen Möller]

Dear all,

I had a phone conversation with the EtherCAT Technology Group's
president, Martin Rostan, this morning. To get an impression, you find
him in this PodCast https://www.sps-magazin.de/podcasts/ (German). Mr
Rostan sends his regards, expresses that he has a heart for all the
mills and lathes in private cellars out there and for the enthusiasts
behind them. However, the initial information I received was wrong. The
ETG's statutes (Satzung in German) do not allow non-legal entities to
become members. Bummer.

Mr Rostan refrained from giving us any legal advise. That would be their
lawyers. But he took the freedom to point out that there are others who
are already shipping EtherCAT drivers and have not experienced any legal
problem at all - he just cannot make any promises of any sorts about the
future, say if their company is bought. Most notably there is ROS and
the idea is that we could learn from them. He knows that the important
bit is that
https://github.com/OpenEtherCATsociety/SOEM/blob/master/LICENSE is
redistributed with the package. This effectively means that users they
become aware of are requested to get that free membership and that does
not change if LinuxCNC is a member or not.

I propose that we look into what ROS has come up with. Otherwise, I do
not know what this means for us, except to take care not to mix the
EtherCAT codebase with the regular LinuxCNC. To avoid paperwork that
would not make much practical difference for anyone, we were discouraged
to register a newly formed society that could be a member. But there may
be other sorts of motivation to have something that can hold money for
LinuxCNC. User meetings come to mind, and then this organization could
also become a member as a side-event.

What now?
Steffen




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Re: [Emc-developers] EtherCAT - would not be a prob with free membership in EtherCAT Technology Group Re: LinuxCNC is in Debian!

[Nicklas SB Karlsson]

Den 2022-03-02 kl. 20:56, skrev Nicklas SB Karlsson:

Den 2022-03-01 kl. 22:06, skrev Jérémie Tarot:

Le mar. 1 mars 2022 à 21:40, Bari  a écrit :



https://github.com/OpenEtherCATsociety/SOEM/blob/master/LICENSE



I don't understand how the last sentences could be compatible with GPL?


lhH EtherCat https://etherlab.org/en/ethercat/ I think is licensend 
under GPLv2 license. Master is implemented as kernel module and 
drivers are included in source code. Guess it should not be to hard to 
re implement to run as a real time thread and rename to Freecat.


in lgH there is some local changes to the original drivers I guess 
come kernel, not sure why. I had some problem SOEM with more than 
three Ethercat devices, message never arrived back in the ring, adding 
a router and it did, not sure if might have something to do with this.


Guess it is against answer myself. Anyway I found.

Checking again it is possible to turn off building of Kernel modules in 
lgH so guess it should be rather simple to get into Linuxcnc. Normally 
an .esi file if I remember postfix correct is used then configuring file 
and ideally it should be possible to configure by using these files and 
add .hal pins. Bought Chinese IO modules, 16 bits in and 16 bits but for 
these are I more or less hardcoded position in Ethercat datagram.



Nicklas Karlsson



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Re: [Emc-developers] EtherCAT - would not be a prob with free membership in EtherCAT Technology Group Re: LinuxCNC is in Debian!

[Nicklas SB Karlsson]

Den 2022-03-01 kl. 22:06, skrev Jérémie Tarot:

Le mar. 1 mars 2022 à 21:40, Bari  a écrit :



https://github.com/OpenEtherCATsociety/SOEM/blob/master/LICENSE



I don't understand how the last sentences could be compatible with GPL?


lhH EtherCat https://etherlab.org/en/ethercat/ I think is licensend 
under GPLv2 license. Master is implemented as kernel module and drivers 
are included in source code. Guess it should not be to hard to re 
implement to run as a real time thread and rename to Freecat.


in lgH there is some local changes to the original drivers I guess come 
kernel, not sure why. I had some problem SOEM with more than three 
Ethercat devices, message never arrived back in the ring, adding a 
router and it did, not sure if might have something to do with this.



Nicklas Karlsson



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Re: [Emc-developers] EtherCAT - would not be a prob with free membership in EtherCAT Technology Group Re: LinuxCNC is in Debian!

[Nicklas SB Karlsson]

Den 2022-03-01 kl. 23:35, skrev Rod Webster:

The reason why I put this on the agenda is that I observed that the debian
project uncovered a number of licenses which we had to include in our
copyright statement that deviated from the standard GPL licence. I was
quite surprised at this. I would defer to Steffen on license issues and
compatibility.

For now I think we should make contact and make those assessments later.

I propose to write requesting membership of the ETG with the following
contacts
Myself - admin contact
Lead Developer - Nicklas
Steffan - Licensing and the Debian Project.


It is OK for me.


Nicklas Karlsson



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Re: [Emc-developers] EtherCAT support

[Steffen Möller]

On 02.03.22 15:10, andy pugh wrote:

On Wed, 2 Mar 2022 at 11:31, Arvid Brodin  wrote:


For full out-of-the-box EtherCAT support this package must be included in 
whichever distro(s) we use. I have no idea if this is possible

This is currently fairly easy, as we run our own package server, and
are already distributing debs for several other related projects (for
example mesaflash, gtk-sourceview, glade-3:
https://www.linuxcnc.org/dists/buster/base/binary-amd64/ )

I am not clear if a version of LinuxCNC installed from the Debian
servers would have access to our private repository. I would expect
not?


We could do it like the skype package for Debian and just add that URL
to /etc/apt/sources.d plus apt-key import with what you signed the
repository. I do not really like that, though.

Mesaflash is in Debian.

Best,
Steffen




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Re: [Emc-developers] EtherCAT support

[andy pugh]

On Wed, 2 Mar 2022 at 11:31, Arvid Brodin  wrote:

> For full out-of-the-box EtherCAT support this package must be included in 
> whichever distro(s) we use. I have no idea if this is possible

This is currently fairly easy, as we run our own package server, and
are already distributing debs for several other related projects (for
example mesaflash, gtk-sourceview, glade-3:
https://www.linuxcnc.org/dists/buster/base/binary-amd64/ )

I am not clear if a version of LinuxCNC installed from the Debian
servers would have access to our private repository. I would expect
not?

-- 
atp
"A motorcycle is a bicycle with a pandemonium attachment and is
designed for the especial use of mechanical geniuses, daredevils and
lunatics."
— George Fitch, Atlanta Constitution Newspaper, 1912


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Re: [Emc-developers] EtherCAT support

[Arvid Brodin]

On 2022-03-01 18:14, andy pugh wrote:

I am generally in favour of anything that makes LinuxCNC easier to use
and more broadly applicable.
So, I support bundling-in EtherCAT support, as long as we can be sure
that nobody will be pointing their lawyers in our direction.

However, one worry that we had in the past was that, whilst this
organisation might be inside the Beckhoff "rules" if we join ETG,
doing so might accidentally impose an unexpected (by them) licensing
condition or restriction on our users.
I don't know how real a worry that is.

As I understand things:

There are two basic parts needed for EtherCAT support:


1) Etherlab's ethercat master (https://gitlab.com/etherlab.org/ethercat). This 
software communicates with the ethernet layer and provides a programming api 
for EtherCAT communications, as well as a command line utility to interact with 
the bus. This software is completely independent from LinuxCNC. The code is 
licensed under GPLv2, but as can be seen on the linked gitlab site it has 
(unclear to me) restrictions on usage:

"The license mentioned above concerns the source code only. Using the EtherCAT 
technology and brand is only permitted in compliance with the industrial property and 
similar rights of Beckhoff Automation GmbH."

For full out-of-the-box EtherCAT support this package must be included in 
whichever distro(s) we use. I have no idea if this is possible (it would be up 
to debian to decide). Communicating with Etherlab/Beckhoff/ETG to figure this 
out is pretty far down on my list of things I want to do in relation to 
LinuxCNC, so I will not get involved in this.


2) Sascha Ittner's linuxcnc-ethercat driver. This is a HAL component that uses 
the Etherlab master api to let linuxcnc communicate with EtherCAT devices. It 
seems to be licensed under GPLv2. IMO it would be useful to make this a part of 
the linuxcnc codebase if the licenses are compatible. It could be enabled by 
e.g. './configure --enable-ethercat' (which would then check that the 
dependency Etherlab master is installed). Again, I have other things in my 
to-do queue but perhaps someone else is interested in doing this?

IANAL but the only risk I see in including linuxcnc-ethercat is that Beckhoff might 
decide that we cannot use the term "ethercat", and we'd then have to rename all 
instances of that term to something else. But hopefully they'd help us to increase 
compliance/compatibility instead, if there was a problem!


In addition, Dominik Braun's cia402 HAL component 
(https://github.com/dbraun1981/hal-cia402) is very useful for using EtherCAT 
drives and would be great to have as a standard HAL component.

And I guess for full support there would also have to be some kind of 
configuration software to create the appropriate INI and HAL files.


--
Arvid Brodin


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Re: [Emc-developers] EtherCAT - would not be a prob with free membership in EtherCAT Technology Group Re: LinuxCNC is in Debian!

[Steffen Möller]

On 01.03.22 23:35, Rod Webster wrote:

The reason why I put this on the agenda is that I observed that the debian
project uncovered a number of licenses which we had to include in our
copyright statement that deviated from the standard GPL licence. I was
quite surprised at this. I would defer to Steffen on license issues and
compatibility.

For now I think we should make contact and make those assessments later.

I propose to write requesting membership of the ETG with the following
contacts
Myself - admin contact
Lead Developer - Nicklas
Steffan - Licensing and the Debian Project.

Please let me know if that sounds OK.


It is very nice of yours to consider me but I do not think I am needed
and Debian has this rule that anything good happening to the Open Source
world must not be bound to be Debian-specific, I would hence not want to
stress Debian too much / single it out. What may be good is to have
someone EtherCAT-savvy from Germany as a helper should whatever
communication problem arise or to open some backchannel to lure them
into sponsoring our devs with some hardware.

Someone "from here" please contact Ron. Should nobody surface then
please add me as "someone local in case this is helpful". I'll PM you
contact details.

Best,
Steffen




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Re: [Emc-developers] EtherCAT - would not be a prob with free membership in EtherCAT Technology Group Re: LinuxCNC is in Debian!

[gene heskett]

On Tuesday, March 1, 2022 4:20:42 PM EST Nicklas SB Karlsson wrote:
> Den 2022-03-01 kl. 21:39, skrev Bari:
> > On 3/1/22 14:25, Nicklas SB Karlsson wrote:
> >> Den 2022-03-01 kl. 21:17, skrev Bari:
> >>> On 3/1/22 13:20, Nicklas SB Karlsson wrote:
>  Already have a simple implementation of an Ethercat driver with
>  hardcoded configuration but read something about the license
>  problem and have kept it for myself.
> >>> 
> >>> If you developed this yourself without being under an NDA or some
> >>> contract with Beckhoff aren't you free to distribute this under any
> >>> license that you choose?
> >> 
> >> Used SOEM but added some code, no NDA.
> > 
> > https://github.com/OpenEtherCATsociety/SOEM/blob/master/LICENSE
> 
> Line below seems like a problem.
> 
> 
> You can use SOEM for the sole purpose of creating, using and/or selling
> or otherwise distributing an EtherCAT network master provided that an
> EtherCAT Master License is obtained from Beckhoff Automation GmbH.
> 
I think the key word here might be "master" but check with the legal dept 
for sure.  Sounds like clients, written in a truely clean room might be 
ok. But using SOEM for advice probably isn't "clean room".

Cheers, Gene Heskett.
-- 
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author, 1940)
If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.
 - Louis D. Brandeis
Genes Web page 





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Re: [Emc-developers] EtherCAT - would not be a prob with free membership in EtherCAT Technology Group Re: LinuxCNC is in Debian!

[Rod Webster]

The reason why I put this on the agenda is that I observed that the debian
project uncovered a number of licenses which we had to include in our
copyright statement that deviated from the standard GPL licence. I was
quite surprised at this. I would defer to Steffen on license issues and
compatibility.

For now I think we should make contact and make those assessments later.

I propose to write requesting membership of the ETG with the following
contacts
Myself - admin contact
Lead Developer - Nicklas
Steffan - Licensing and the Debian Project.

Please let me know if that sounds OK.

Rod Webster
*1300 896 832*
+61 435 765 611
Vehicle Modifications Network
www.vehiclemods.net.au


On Wed, 2 Mar 2022 at 07:48, Jérémie Tarot  wrote:

> Le mar. 1 mars 2022 à 22:22, Nicklas SB Karlsson  a écrit :
>
> >
> > >
> > > https://github.com/OpenEtherCATsociety/SOEM/blob/master/LICENSE
> >
> >
> > Line below seems like a problem.
> >
>
>
> Exactly
>
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Re: [Emc-developers] EtherCAT - would not be a prob with free membership in EtherCAT Technology Group Re: LinuxCNC is in Debian!

[Jérémie Tarot]

Le mar. 1 mars 2022 à 22:22, Nicklas SB Karlsson  a écrit :

>
> >
> > https://github.com/OpenEtherCATsociety/SOEM/blob/master/LICENSE
>
>
> Line below seems like a problem.
>


Exactly

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Re: [Emc-developers] EtherCAT - would not be a prob with free membership in EtherCAT Technology Group Re: LinuxCNC is in Debian!

[Nicklas SB Karlsson]

Den 2022-03-01 kl. 21:39, skrev Bari:


On 3/1/22 14:25, Nicklas SB Karlsson wrote:

Den 2022-03-01 kl. 21:17, skrev Bari:

On 3/1/22 13:20, Nicklas SB Karlsson wrote:
Already have a simple implementation of an Ethercat driver with 
hardcoded configuration but read something about the license 
problem and have kept it for myself. 



If you developed this yourself without being under an NDA or some 
contract with Beckhoff aren't you free to distribute this under any 
license that you choose?
Used SOEM but added some code, no NDA. 



https://github.com/OpenEtherCATsociety/SOEM/blob/master/LICENSE



Line below seems like a problem.


You can use SOEM for the sole purpose of creating, using and/or selling 
or otherwise distributing an EtherCAT network master provided that an 
EtherCAT Master License is obtained from Beckhoff Automation GmbH.



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Re: [Emc-developers] EtherCAT - would not be a prob with free membership in EtherCAT Technology Group Re: LinuxCNC is in Debian!

[Jérémie Tarot]

Le mar. 1 mars 2022 à 21:40, Bari  a écrit :

>
>
> https://github.com/OpenEtherCATsociety/SOEM/blob/master/LICENSE



I don't understand how the last sentences could be compatible with GPL?


>

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Re: [Emc-developers] EtherCAT - would not be a prob with free membership in EtherCAT Technology Group Re: LinuxCNC is in Debian!

[Bari]

On 3/1/22 14:25, Nicklas SB Karlsson wrote:

Den 2022-03-01 kl. 21:17, skrev Bari:

On 3/1/22 13:20, Nicklas SB Karlsson wrote:
Already have a simple implementation of an Ethercat driver with 
hardcoded configuration but read something about the license problem 
and have kept it for myself. 



If you developed this yourself without being under an NDA or some 
contract with Beckhoff aren't you free to distribute this under any 
license that you choose?
Used SOEM but added some code, no NDA. 



https://github.com/OpenEtherCATsociety/SOEM/blob/master/LICENSE



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Re: [Emc-developers] EtherCAT - would not be a prob with free membership in EtherCAT Technology Group Re: LinuxCNC is in Debian!

[Nicklas SB Karlsson]

Den 2022-03-01 kl. 21:17, skrev Bari:

On 3/1/22 13:20, Nicklas SB Karlsson wrote:
Already have a simple implementation of an Ethercat driver with 
hardcoded configuration but read something about the license problem 
and have kept it for myself. 



If you developed this yourself without being under an NDA or some 
contract with Beckhoff aren't you free to distribute this under any 
license that you choose?

Used SOEM but added some code, no NDA.



You don't have to use their term for the driver if it is trademarked. 
Call it something else such as FreeCAT.

Renaming is simple, will do that.



The FSF has lots of resources available. Run the Beckhoff license past 
them for an opinion on conflicts with GPL.



Are there any patents involved in a Linux driver for EtherCAT?


Not sure about the driver, master use ordinary Ethernet but nodes have 
special hardware, guess is it work similar to a shift register as values 
are read/written while datagram pass thru. Pretty sure patent is about 
the nodes.



Real time perfomance is excellent and there are plenty of devices 
available to chose from on the market, Beckhoff have many.



Nickas Karlsson



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Re: [Emc-developers] EtherCAT - would not be a prob with free membership in EtherCAT Technology Group Re: LinuxCNC is in Debian!

[Bari]

On 3/1/22 13:20, Nicklas SB Karlsson wrote:
Already have a simple implementation of an Ethercat driver with 
hardcoded configuration but read something about the license problem 
and have kept it for myself. 



If you developed this yourself without being under an NDA or some 
contract with Beckhoff aren't you free to distribute this under any 
license that you choose?



You don't have to use their term for the driver if it is trademarked. 
Call it something else such as FreeCAT.



The FSF has lots of resources available. Run the Beckhoff license past 
them for an opinion on conflicts with GPL.



Are there any patents involved in a Linux driver for EtherCAT?



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Re: [Emc-developers] EtherCAT - would not be a prob with free membership in EtherCAT Technology Group Re: LinuxCNC is in Debian!

[Steffen Möller]

On 01.03.22 20:15, Nicklas SB Karlsson wrote:

Den 2022-03-01 kl. 13:27, skrev Rod Webster:

So I shared Steffen's post on the Ethercat section of the forum
calling for
technical volunteers. Maybe some of them are in this group already.
https://forum.linuxcnc.org/ethercat/45239-lets-get-ethercat-into-the-linuxcnc-distribution-need-technical-people-to-help



I have to volunteer. Also have knowledge about CANopen which is useful
since many devices use this "protocol" over ethercat.


Great!

I'll leave it to Rod to assemble the
EtherCAT-Technology-Group-contact-front-for-LinuxCNC .

@Rod, I suggest you collect the contact details from the volunteers per
PM and finish the letter that I started or prepare a better one. As I
mentioned in my reply to Andy, we still need to learn about how to leave
that group if their conditions change so I suggest to clarify that
upfront, too. For instance, should they find LinuxCNC in violation with
anything (like proving technically incompetent, whatever) and they
cancel our membership then it is important for us that any action of
ours can only be performed "ex nunc" (from that moment on). We cannot
"undistribute" anything, which would be "ex tunc"? Gosh.

Many thanks to all!

Steffen



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Re: [Emc-developers] EtherCAT - would not be a prob with free membership in EtherCAT Technology Group Re: LinuxCNC is in Debian!

[Nicklas SB Karlsson]

Den 2022-02-28 kl. 15:47, skrev Steffen Möller:

Hello again,

On 28.02.22 14:28, andy pugh wrote:
On Mon, 28 Feb 2022 at 13:22, Steffen Möller  
wrote:


Personally I know nothing about EtherCAT. I have always been a little
afraid of the licensing complexities mentioned here:

https://etherlab.org/en/ethercat/

Etherlab itself is GPLv2, but _using_ it seems to bring a different
licensing restriction into play. And I don't know enough about
licensing to know if that's a problem.


I called them up - first the Beckhoff group (they have nice stuff on 
https://www.beckhoff.com/en-gb/) and from there I was pointed to the 
EtherCAT Technology Group (https://www.ethercat.org/de/contact.html), 
so I called them, too. Without that membership we would be in said 
uncharacterized unmitigated license trouble


Already have a simple implementation of an Ethercat driver with 
hardcoded configuration but read something about the license problem and 
have kept it for myself.



  that Andy referenced but with that membership they would be very 
sweet to us. From what I understand, they try to be good people and 
just in case someone messes something up they do not want to guess how 
to reach out. So we are asked to become a member of the EtherCAT 
Technology Group (ETG) - for which we would identify someone who would 
serve as a communicator between them and our community and write a 
"3-line email" with our request to integrate an EtherCAT driver that 
is available at some URL with LinuxCNC as described on 
https://linuxcnc.org.


I do not see that Debian would become a member of their Technology 
Group. And it would not make too much sense to me to have any extra 
outreach from Debian to that ETG, but we can ask for an OK to have 
that distribution channel and also ask for Fedora at the same time.


Now - big question: Is there an agreement that it would be beneficial 
for LinuxCNC to become a member of the ETG? It is free. And there 
likely a series of perks for training material that may not be of our 
immediate concern. They invited me to help with that initial contact 
but that LinuxCNC-representative to them could then be anyone we pick. 
Andy? Rod? You both? Jeff? All three of yours?

I could volunteer.


Nicklas SB Karlsson


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Re: [Emc-developers] EtherCAT - would not be a prob with free membership in EtherCAT Technology Group Re: LinuxCNC is in Debian!

[Nicklas SB Karlsson]

Den 2022-03-01 kl. 13:27, skrev Rod Webster:

So I shared Steffen's post on the Ethercat section of the forum calling for
technical volunteers. Maybe some of them are in this group already.
https://forum.linuxcnc.org/ethercat/45239-lets-get-ethercat-into-the-linuxcnc-distribution-need-technical-people-to-help


I have to volunteer. Also have knowledge about CANopen which is useful 
since many devices use this "protocol" over ethercat.



Nicklas SB Karlsson



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Re: [Emc-developers] EtherCAT - would not be a prob with free membership in EtherCAT Technology Group Re: LinuxCNC is in Debian!

[Rod Webster]

So I shared Steffen's post on the Ethercat section of the forum calling for
technical volunteers. Maybe some of them are in this group already.
https://forum.linuxcnc.org/ethercat/45239-lets-get-ethercat-into-the-linuxcnc-distribution-need-technical-people-to-help

Lets hope the right people come forward.

Rod Webster
*1300 896 832*
+61 435 765 611
Vehicle Modifications Network
www.vehiclemods.net.au


On Tue, 1 Mar 2022 at 07:44, Rod Webster  wrote:

> One could argue we are already in breach of their license by mentioning
> Ethercat in our Debian package :)
> There is no point suggesting something without being willing to contribute.
> Therefore I am happy to be an admin contact using the email
> ether...@vmn.com.au
> There are others who are more competent than I with the technical stuff.
>
> Sascha Ittner and Dominik Braun whose work on github I referenced spring
> to mind
> Also Arvid Brodin who is in this group knows a bit I think but is working
> on trajectory planning
> Michel Winja (Grotius) is also very knowledgeable
>
> I will see if I can attract their attention.
>
> Rod Webster
> *1300 896 832*
> +61 435 765 611
> Vehicle Modifications Network
> www.vehiclemods.net.au
>
>
> On Tue, 1 Mar 2022 at 00:48, Steffen Möller 
> wrote:
>
>> Hello again,
>>
>> On 28.02.22 14:28, andy pugh wrote:
>> > On Mon, 28 Feb 2022 at 13:22, Steffen Möller 
>> wrote:
>> >
>> > Personally I know nothing about EtherCAT. I have always been a little
>> > afraid of the licensing complexities mentioned here:
>> >
>> > https://etherlab.org/en/ethercat/
>> >
>> > Etherlab itself is GPLv2, but _using_ it seems to bring a different
>> > licensing restriction into play. And I don't know enough about
>> > licensing to know if that's a problem.
>>
>> I called them up - first the Beckhoff group (they have nice stuff on
>> https://www.beckhoff.com/en-gb/) and from there I was pointed to the
>> EtherCAT Technology Group (https://www.ethercat.org/de/contact.html), so
>> I called them, too. Without that membership we would be in said
>> uncharacterized unmitigated license trouble  that Andy referenced but with
>> that membership they would be very sweet to us. From what I understand,
>> they try to be good people and just in case someone messes something up
>> they do not want to guess how to reach out. So we are asked to become a
>> member of the EtherCAT Technology Group (ETG) - for which we would identify
>> someone who would serve as a communicator between them and our community
>> and write a "3-line email" with our request to integrate an EtherCAT driver
>> that is available at some URL with LinuxCNC as described on
>> https://linuxcnc.org.
>>
>> I do not see that Debian would become a member of their Technology Group.
>> And it would not make too much sense to me to have any extra outreach from
>> Debian to that ETG, but we can ask for an OK to have that distribution
>> channel and also ask for Fedora at the same time.
>>
>> Now - big question: Is there an agreement that it would be beneficial for
>> LinuxCNC to become a member of the ETG? It is free. And there likely a
>> series of perks for training material that may not be of our immediate
>> concern. They invited me to help with that initial contact but that
>> LinuxCNC-representative to them could then be anyone we pick. Andy? Rod?
>> You both? Jeff? All three of yours?
>>
>> Best,
>> Steffen
>>
>>
>>
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Re: [Emc-developers] EtherCAT - would not be a prob with free membership in EtherCAT Technology Group Re: LinuxCNC is in Debian!

[Rod Webster]

One could argue we are already in breach of their license by mentioning
Ethercat in our Debian package :)
There is no point suggesting something without being willing to contribute.
Therefore I am happy to be an admin contact using the email
ether...@vmn.com.au
There are others who are more competent than I with the technical stuff.

Sascha Ittner and Dominik Braun whose work on github I referenced spring to
mind
Also Arvid Brodin who is in this group knows a bit I think but is working
on trajectory planning
Michel Winja (Grotius) is also very knowledgeable

I will see if I can attract their attention.

Rod Webster
*1300 896 832*
+61 435 765 611
Vehicle Modifications Network
www.vehiclemods.net.au


On Tue, 1 Mar 2022 at 00:48, Steffen Möller  wrote:

> Hello again,
>
> On 28.02.22 14:28, andy pugh wrote:
> > On Mon, 28 Feb 2022 at 13:22, Steffen Möller 
> wrote:
> >
> > Personally I know nothing about EtherCAT. I have always been a little
> > afraid of the licensing complexities mentioned here:
> >
> > https://etherlab.org/en/ethercat/
> >
> > Etherlab itself is GPLv2, but _using_ it seems to bring a different
> > licensing restriction into play. And I don't know enough about
> > licensing to know if that's a problem.
>
> I called them up - first the Beckhoff group (they have nice stuff on
> https://www.beckhoff.com/en-gb/) and from there I was pointed to the
> EtherCAT Technology Group (https://www.ethercat.org/de/contact.html), so
> I called them, too. Without that membership we would be in said
> uncharacterized unmitigated license trouble  that Andy referenced but with
> that membership they would be very sweet to us. From what I understand,
> they try to be good people and just in case someone messes something up
> they do not want to guess how to reach out. So we are asked to become a
> member of the EtherCAT Technology Group (ETG) - for which we would identify
> someone who would serve as a communicator between them and our community
> and write a "3-line email" with our request to integrate an EtherCAT driver
> that is available at some URL with LinuxCNC as described on
> https://linuxcnc.org.
>
> I do not see that Debian would become a member of their Technology Group.
> And it would not make too much sense to me to have any extra outreach from
> Debian to that ETG, but we can ask for an OK to have that distribution
> channel and also ask for Fedora at the same time.
>
> Now - big question: Is there an agreement that it would be beneficial for
> LinuxCNC to become a member of the ETG? It is free. And there likely a
> series of perks for training material that may not be of our immediate
> concern. They invited me to help with that initial contact but that
> LinuxCNC-representative to them could then be anyone we pick. Andy? Rod?
> You both? Jeff? All three of yours?
>
> Best,
> Steffen
>
>
>
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[Emc-developers] EtherCAT - would not be a prob with free membership in EtherCAT Technology Group Re: LinuxCNC is in Debian!

[Steffen Möller]

Hello again,

On 28.02.22 14:28, andy pugh wrote:

On Mon, 28 Feb 2022 at 13:22, Steffen Möller  wrote:

Personally I know nothing about EtherCAT. I have always been a little
afraid of the licensing complexities mentioned here:

https://etherlab.org/en/ethercat/

Etherlab itself is GPLv2, but _using_ it seems to bring a different
licensing restriction into play. And I don't know enough about
licensing to know if that's a problem.


I called them up - first the Beckhoff group (they have nice stuff on 
https://www.beckhoff.com/en-gb/) and from there I was pointed to the EtherCAT Technology 
Group (https://www.ethercat.org/de/contact.html), so I called them, too. Without that 
membership we would be in said uncharacterized unmitigated license trouble  that Andy 
referenced but with that membership they would be very sweet to us. From what I 
understand, they try to be good people and just in case someone messes something up they 
do not want to guess how to reach out. So we are asked to become a member of the EtherCAT 
Technology Group (ETG) - for which we would identify someone who would serve as a 
communicator between them and our community and write a "3-line email" with our 
request to integrate an EtherCAT driver that is available at some URL with LinuxCNC as 
described on https://linuxcnc.org.

I do not see that Debian would become a member of their Technology Group. And 
it would not make too much sense to me to have any extra outreach from Debian 
to that ETG, but we can ask for an OK to have that distribution channel and 
also ask for Fedora at the same time.

Now - big question: Is there an agreement that it would be beneficial for 
LinuxCNC to become a member of the ETG? It is free. And there likely a series 
of perks for training material that may not be of our immediate concern. They 
invited me to help with that initial contact but that LinuxCNC-representative 
to them could then be anyone we pick. Andy? Rod? You both? Jeff? All three of 
yours?

Best,
Steffen



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Re: [Emc-developers] EtherCAT modules help needed --> some kind of write access

[Nicklas SB Karlsson]

> That's interesting, Nicklas!
> 
> I never met SOEM before the same for lcec before I started this integration.
> I understand that those technologies are completely different
> implementations, aren't they?
> 
> Was it hard to develop your solution? Where did you start, what was needed?
> 
> BTW, I found and watched this video, which I found interesting:
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHFZMir9mjk
> While I am not sure what is free and what we have to pay for.
> 
> Anyway, can you share some code with me?

Back from garage, warmer, no snow or similar problem but hot. All of a sudden 
speed of computer fan started and it went and problem resisted even though 
computer hav been to cellar for a few hours and last some changes in file. Also 
birds nest and bird dropping in the gutter for cutting chip management.


Have some code to share and thinking about the right place must be a fork in 
Linuxcnc, rememember some copyright notice but sharing what I have written 
can't be a problem even though license agreement is required to used it with 
some kind of other library. It would be possible to get my own fork with write 
access on Github or similar?


Nicklas SB Karlsson


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[Emc-developers] EtherCAT modules help needed

[Marius Alksnys]

Could someone help me develop a lcec (LinuxCnc EtherCat) driver for two 
modules:
1. Beckhoff 1-channel SinCos encoder interface - EL5021 (1Vpp), ES5021 
(11uApp)

https://www.beckhoff.com/en-en/products/i-o/ethercat-terminals/el5xxx-position-measurement/el5021.html

2. NCT Dual encoder input and analog output + CAN interface module TTLAC2.
Current integration project needs analog outputs only.

https://www.nct.hu/pdf/NC_Documents/English/Install/TTLAC_measuring_system_modul.pdf

https://www.nct.hu/cnc_termekek_.php?cikkszam=40-00010379-10=ios=InIO=eng

?


I managed to get NCT MK15, EPU-SIS, I16 and O16 modules working by using 
generic driver and custom xml file.


While this method does not work for me with two modules mentioned above.
I imagine this would be easier for the guy(s) who developed other 
modules or with their help.

I mean these: https://github.com/sittner/linuxcnc-ethercat/tree/master/src

These are xml files from manufacturers: 
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1yKauechhYRGtSLuFyktUWv5CNUn8vdL9?usp=sharing



This is the OS image I used and I find it the easiest and the best 
compilation to get anyone started with LinuxCNC + EtherCAT:

https://sourceforge.net/projects/skynet-software/

taken from: 
https://forum.linuxcnc.org/18-computer/40328-debian-buster-10-linuxcnc-ethercat-iso-cd-download-1-7-gb


Note, that git one on the first post is older.



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Re: [Emc-developers] EtherCAT, read esi *.xml file

[Nicklas Karlsson]

Parsing of ESI files, *.xml files would probably be A good idea. I ran 
hardcoded now and at a first glance it seems source code below also do this. I 
have seen siitool parse xml file and it would probably not be to hard to reuse 
code from this tool.

As position out and encoder in plus a few other signals is the only thing I 
need I stay with hardcoded right now but at the time I get the need for other 
signals buying an Ethercat module and add parsing of esi file I will probably 
do.




On Mon, 25 Mar 2019 13:56:48 +
andy pugh  wrote:

> Whilst I think we have decided that it is not possible to distribute
> an EtherCAT driver with LinuxCNC[1] it seems that some users are using
> it extensively and successfully.
> 
> Which leads me to wonder if we should include a section in the
> documentation about its use and where to download the enabling
> software?
> 
> [1] Though where the license-break is is not clear:
> Sascha's HAL driver is GPLv2:
> https://github.com/sittner/linuxcnc-ethercat but I seem to recall that
> actual use of EtherCAT involves an implied compliance with the
> Beckhoff terms.
> There is a summary here in an old machinekit discussion:
> https://groups.google.com/forum/#!search/machinekit$20beckhoff/machinekit/yxQxqNbMvtc/UsaYVfAarCsJ
> 
> -- 
> atp
> "A motorcycle is a bicycle with a pandemonium attachment and is
> designed for the especial use of mechanical geniuses, daredevils and
> lunatics."
> — George Fitch, Atlanta Constitution Newspaper, 1916
> 
> 
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Re: [Emc-developers] EtherCAT

[Peter C. Wallace]

On Wed, 27 Mar 2019, Chris Morley wrote:


Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2019 00:59:18 +
From: Chris Morley 
Reply-To: EMC developers 
To: EMC developers 
Subject: Re: [Emc-developers] EtherCAT

I think adding docs would be a fine idea.

Chris M



Docs and perhaps some sample hal/ini files...



From: andy pugh 
Sent: March 25, 2019 1:56 PM
To: EMC developers
Subject: [Emc-developers] EtherCAT

Whilst I think we have decided that it is not possible to distribute
an EtherCAT driver with LinuxCNC[1] it seems that some users are using
it extensively and successfully.

Which leads me to wonder if we should include a section in the
documentation about its use and where to download the enabling
software?

[1] Though where the license-break is is not clear:
Sascha's HAL driver is GPLv2:
https://github.com/sittner/linuxcnc-ethercat but I seem to recall that
actual use of EtherCAT involves an implied compliance with the
Beckhoff terms.
There is a summary here in an old machinekit discussion:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!search/machinekit$20beckhoff/machinekit/yxQxqNbMvtc/UsaYVfAarCsJ

--
atp
"A motorcycle is a bicycle with a pandemonium attachment and is
designed for the especial use of mechanical geniuses, daredevils and
lunatics."
— George Fitch, Atlanta Constitution Newspaper, 1916


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Peter Wallace
Mesa Electronics

(\__/)
(='.'=) This is Bunny. Copy and paste bunny into your
(")_(") signature to help him gain world domination.

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Re: [Emc-developers] EtherCAT

[Chris Morley]

I think adding docs would be a fine idea.

Chris M


From: andy pugh 
Sent: March 25, 2019 1:56 PM
To: EMC developers
Subject: [Emc-developers] EtherCAT

Whilst I think we have decided that it is not possible to distribute
an EtherCAT driver with LinuxCNC[1] it seems that some users are using
it extensively and successfully.

Which leads me to wonder if we should include a section in the
documentation about its use and where to download the enabling
software?

[1] Though where the license-break is is not clear:
Sascha's HAL driver is GPLv2:
https://github.com/sittner/linuxcnc-ethercat but I seem to recall that
actual use of EtherCAT involves an implied compliance with the
Beckhoff terms.
There is a summary here in an old machinekit discussion:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!search/machinekit$20beckhoff/machinekit/yxQxqNbMvtc/UsaYVfAarCsJ

--
atp
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designed for the especial use of mechanical geniuses, daredevils and
lunatics."
— George Fitch, Atlanta Constitution Newspaper, 1916


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Re: [Emc-developers] EtherCAT

[Nicklas Karlsson]

On Mon, 25 Mar 2019 13:56:48 +
andy pugh  wrote:

> Whilst I think we have decided that it is not possible to distribute
> an EtherCAT driver with LinuxCNC[1] it seems that some users are using
> it extensively and successfully.
> 
> Which leads me to wonder if we should include a section in the
> documentation about its use and where to download the enabling
> software?

I used soem on master and wrote my own driver though far from complete. Think 
it was some kind of the problem with kernel but do not remember for sure. Some 
kind of copyright notice from Beckhoff is holding me back from sharing it.

> [1] Though where the license-break is is not clear:
> Sascha's HAL driver is GPLv2:
> https://github.com/sittner/linuxcnc-ethercat but I seem to recall that
> actual use of EtherCAT involves an implied compliance with the
> Beckhoff terms.

I also remember something about this.


Nicklas Karlsson


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[Emc-developers] EtherCAT

[andy pugh]

Whilst I think we have decided that it is not possible to distribute
an EtherCAT driver with LinuxCNC[1] it seems that some users are using
it extensively and successfully.

Which leads me to wonder if we should include a section in the
documentation about its use and where to download the enabling
software?

[1] Though where the license-break is is not clear:
Sascha's HAL driver is GPLv2:
https://github.com/sittner/linuxcnc-ethercat but I seem to recall that
actual use of EtherCAT involves an implied compliance with the
Beckhoff terms.
There is a summary here in an old machinekit discussion:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!search/machinekit$20beckhoff/machinekit/yxQxqNbMvtc/UsaYVfAarCsJ

-- 
atp
"A motorcycle is a bicycle with a pandemonium attachment and is
designed for the especial use of mechanical geniuses, daredevils and
lunatics."
— George Fitch, Atlanta Constitution Newspaper, 1916


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Re: [Emc-developers] Ethercat driver --> LAN9252 6 bytes in 200µs

[Nicklas Karlsson]

On Sat, 10 Mar 2018 13:53:29 -0500
Gene Heskett  wrote:

> On Saturday 10 March 2018 12:42:56 Nicklas Karlsson wrote:
> 
> > I just discovered it take about 200µs to write six bytes of process
> > data in process RAM via SPI into the LAN9252 chip! It's horrible slow.
> > I can't figure out they think about then they make SPI protocol like
> > this.
> >
> > Write adresse(s) and read/write as many bytes as needed had been the
> > most obvious, now there are several commands and wait in between.
> >
> Wow! Thats time to call a surveyor and have him set stakes!
> 
> But from what little I've fooled with spi, on a pi 3b no less, its many*2 
> faster than that. I have it writing to a Mesa 7i90HD at 41 megabaud, and 
> reading the responses back from the 7i90HD at 25 megabaud. Sending and 
> receiving in 32 bit packets.

SPI is 5 or 10Mbit/s I think and faster is possible, problem is procedure 
needed to read and write data to process ram.

Distributed clock and real time data work perfect.

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Re: [Emc-developers] Ethercat driver --> LAN9252 6 bytes in 200µs

[Gene Heskett]

On Saturday 10 March 2018 12:42:56 Nicklas Karlsson wrote:

> I just discovered it take about 200µs to write six bytes of process
> data in process RAM via SPI into the LAN9252 chip! It's horrible slow.
> I can't figure out they think about then they make SPI protocol like
> this.
>
> Write adresse(s) and read/write as many bytes as needed had been the
> most obvious, now there are several commands and wait in between.
>
Wow! Thats time to call a surveyor and have him set stakes!

But from what little I've fooled with spi, on a pi 3b no less, its many*2 
faster than that. I have it writing to a Mesa 7i90HD at 41 megabaud, and 
reading the responses back from the 7i90HD at 25 megabaud. Sending and 
receiving in 32 bit packets.

The data rate, going either direction is determined by the master, with 
errors if any determined to have occurred by a simple rx checksum. Data 
generally goes out to be latched into the slaves on the falling edge of 
the master generated clock, and comes back in the full duplex mode if 
its used, or by doing single direction at a time, in any event latched 
by the master on the riseing edge of the clock.  That last may be 
polarity inverted, its been a while since I last had a scope on the 
lines. And its difficult to see whats happening since the loading of the 
usual 7 to 8 pf + 10 megohms scope probe will generally screw the pooch 
because of its induced errors caused by the lengthening of the t=rc 
rise/fall times. My interconnecting cable is also only about 2" of 
signal path long. Longer will no doubt slow it down for the same reason.

That spi driver is rpspi.ko, and at the present time, runs ONLY on the 
pi, and in fact has init code in it that prevents it from running on 
anything but the pi's. The src code is now in LinuxCNC's src tree, and I 
believe professor Bertho Stultans, who wrote it, is about burned out 
because it turned into a much bigger project than he had in mind when he 
volunteered to see what he could do with it after the original author 
took a random remark wrong and bailed out.

In any event, I'd like to see the pi only stuff expunged from that 
driver, as it could then be built to run on the arm64's like the rock64, 
a considerably faster teeny card than the pi will ever be.

And now you know as much about the spi bus as I do, IOW not that much...

What I've been able to deduce, running on the pi, is that the spi data 
does NOT have to go thru the pi's internal usb2 hub, something the mouse 
and keyboard MUST do, and that results in input events being thrown away 
in the traffic jam caused by this internal hub. There is NO data loss in 
the spi bus, it Just Works(TM).

> On Fri, 2 Mar 2018 08:07:33 -0500
>
> Kenneth Lerman  wrote:
> > Change the species.
> >
> > etherCAT becomes etherDOG
> >
> > Ken
> >
> > Kenneth Lerman
> > 55 Main Street
> > Newtown, CT 06470
> >
> >
> > On Wed, Feb 21, 2018 at 4:51 PM, Nicklas Karlsson <
> >
> > nicklas.karlsso...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > On Tue, 23 Jan 2018 08:17:52 -0500
> > >
> > > Gene Heskett  wrote:
> > > > On Tuesday 23 January 2018 08:01:01 andy pugh wrote:
> > > > > On 23 January 2018 at 03:26, Rod Webster
> > > > > 
> > > >
> > > > wrote:
> > > > > > This link seems to confirm the Etherlab invocation is GPLv2
> > > > > > so you may be right!
> > > > > > https://etherlab.org/en/ethercat/index.php
> > > > >
> > > > > Etherlab and SOEM are both GPL (or want to be)
> > > > >
> > > > > The problem is with Beckhoff who own the EtherCAT trademark
> > > > > and technology.
> > > >
> > > > Then we need to come up with a new name for it, and this
> > > > interface chip Nicklas has used offloads the technology aspect.
> > > > So it seems to me that should cover those 2 items of concern. I
> > > > haven't a clue what to use for a name and anything I would
> > > > suggest would disqualify itself based on the clean room
> > > > principle.
> > >
> > > I could name the file "ethercat.c", soem is in a sub folder and
> > > set up a new repository on github? Or could I push somewhere else?
> > >
> > > I created a local fork but needed some method to configure devices
> > > and decided a CANopen gateway may be a good solution, it is CiA
> > > 309 if I remember correct.
> > >
> > >
> > > Nicklas Karlsson
> > >
> > > 
> > > --
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> >
> > 
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Re: [Emc-developers] Ethercat driver --> LAN9252 6 bytes in 200µs

[Nicklas Karlsson]

I just discovered it take about 200µs to write six bytes of process data in 
process RAM via SPI into the LAN9252 chip! It's horrible slow. I can't figure 
out they think about then they make SPI protocol like this.

Write adresse(s) and read/write as many bytes as needed had been the most 
obvious, now there are several commands and wait in between.


On Fri, 2 Mar 2018 08:07:33 -0500
Kenneth Lerman  wrote:

> Change the species.
> 
> etherCAT becomes etherDOG
> 
> Ken
> 
> Kenneth Lerman
> 55 Main Street
> Newtown, CT 06470
> 
> 
> On Wed, Feb 21, 2018 at 4:51 PM, Nicklas Karlsson <
> nicklas.karlsso...@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> > On Tue, 23 Jan 2018 08:17:52 -0500
> > Gene Heskett  wrote:
> >
> > > On Tuesday 23 January 2018 08:01:01 andy pugh wrote:
> > >
> > > > On 23 January 2018 at 03:26, Rod Webster 
> > > wrote:
> > > > > This link seems to confirm the Etherlab invocation is GPLv2 so you
> > > > > may be right!
> > > > > https://etherlab.org/en/ethercat/index.php
> > > >
> > > > Etherlab and SOEM are both GPL (or want to be)
> > > >
> > > > The problem is with Beckhoff who own the EtherCAT trademark and
> > > > technology.
> > >
> > > Then we need to come up with a new name for it, and this interface chip
> > > Nicklas has used offloads the technology aspect. So it seems to me that
> > > should cover those 2 items of concern. I haven't a clue what to use for
> > > a name and anything I would suggest would disqualify itself based on the
> > > clean room principle.
> >
> > I could name the file "ethercat.c", soem is in a sub folder and set up a
> > new repository on github? Or could I push somewhere else?
> >
> > I created a local fork but needed some method to configure devices and
> > decided a CANopen gateway may be a good solution, it is CiA 309 if I
> > remember correct.
> >
> >
> > Nicklas Karlsson
> >
> > 
> > --
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> > engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot
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Re: [Emc-developers] Ethercat driver

[andy pugh]

On 5 March 2018 at 12:06, Nicklas Karlsson  wrote:
> Smart serial is UART?

It is serial. I don't know if it uses a UART.
It is not the same as the Mesa UART Hostmot2 module.

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Re: [Emc-developers] Ethercat driver

[Nicklas Karlsson]

Smart serial is UART?

2018-01-18 9:40 GMT+01:00 andy pugh :

> On 17 January 2018 at 23:41, Gene Heskett  wrote:
>
>
> > I think this might be right up PCW's alley. He is already selling some
> > cards that expand via an rj45 jack.
>
>
> There is already at least one non-Mesa servo-drive that is controllable via
> the Mesa "Smart Serial" interface.
> Plug an STMBL drive into LinuxCNC and the HAL pins are all created
> automatically, just like for any other smart-serial device.
>
> But that isn't an answer for supporting existing EtherCAT devices with
> LinuxCNC.
>
>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=seEV_i7o1NI
>
> --
> atp
> "A motorcycle is a bicycle with a pandemonium attachment and is designed
> for the especial use of mechanical geniuses, daredevils and lunatics."
> — George Fitch, Atlanta Constitution Newspaper, 1916
> 
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Re: [Emc-developers] Ethercat driver

[andy pugh]

On 2 March 2018 at 13:07, Kenneth Lerman  wrote:
> Change the species.
>
> etherCAT becomes etherDOG

ÆtherCAT

(May need Unicode)

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Re: [Emc-developers] Ethercat driver

[Kenneth Lerman]

Change the species.

etherCAT becomes etherDOG

Ken

Kenneth Lerman
55 Main Street
Newtown, CT 06470


On Wed, Feb 21, 2018 at 4:51 PM, Nicklas Karlsson <
nicklas.karlsso...@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Tue, 23 Jan 2018 08:17:52 -0500
> Gene Heskett  wrote:
>
> > On Tuesday 23 January 2018 08:01:01 andy pugh wrote:
> >
> > > On 23 January 2018 at 03:26, Rod Webster 
> > wrote:
> > > > This link seems to confirm the Etherlab invocation is GPLv2 so you
> > > > may be right!
> > > > https://etherlab.org/en/ethercat/index.php
> > >
> > > Etherlab and SOEM are both GPL (or want to be)
> > >
> > > The problem is with Beckhoff who own the EtherCAT trademark and
> > > technology.
> >
> > Then we need to come up with a new name for it, and this interface chip
> > Nicklas has used offloads the technology aspect. So it seems to me that
> > should cover those 2 items of concern. I haven't a clue what to use for
> > a name and anything I would suggest would disqualify itself based on the
> > clean room principle.
>
> I could name the file "ethercat.c", soem is in a sub folder and set up a
> new repository on github? Or could I push somewhere else?
>
> I created a local fork but needed some method to configure devices and
> decided a CANopen gateway may be a good solution, it is CiA 309 if I
> remember correct.
>
>
> Nicklas Karlsson
>
> 
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Re: [Emc-developers] Ethercat driver

[John Morris]

On 01/16/2018 07:51 PM, Jeff Epler wrote:

Our policy is that any code added to LinuxCNC has to be compatible with
the license terms "GPL version 2 or any later version".
https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#GPLCompatibleLicenses

Anything that imposes a restriction on how the software can be used (for
example, if it is claimed that using the software requires an additional
license, as Beckhoff Automation GmbH reportedly does) cannot be
incorporated.

For a rather old thread on exactly the same topic, see this one from
2013:
https://sourceforge.net/p/emc/mailman/emc-developers/thread/20131022150751.GB2631%40unpythonic.net/

Jeff


Is that the link from our discussion a few years ago?  " We're sorry -- 
the Sourceforge site is currently in Disaster Recovery mode. Please 
check back later."  Ugh.


I actually revisited this again a few months ago myself.  As mentioned 
in the earlier thread, the sticking point with Beckhoff seems to be the 
EtherCAT name.  They're worried that EtherCAT master implementations 
floating around that don't work properly will soil the technology's 
reputation, and they think that this license restriction will somehow 
address that.


We talked to a lawyer who suggested simply don't use the name EtherCAT. 
That may not be OK with the LCNC project, but might be ok for someone 
wanting to ship a product running LCNC and containing EtherCAT slave 
devices.


Another possibility is for someone else to host the code elsewhere and 
make it able to build out of tree against the LCNC devel packages.  That 
would insulate the project, and some risk-tolerant person might decide 
the benefits make it worthwhile.


John (not a lawyer)

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Re: [Emc-developers] Ethercat driver

[Nicklas Karlsson]

On Tue, 23 Jan 2018 08:17:52 -0500
Gene Heskett  wrote:

> On Tuesday 23 January 2018 08:01:01 andy pugh wrote:
> 
> > On 23 January 2018 at 03:26, Rod Webster  
> wrote:
> > > This link seems to confirm the Etherlab invocation is GPLv2 so you
> > > may be right!
> > > https://etherlab.org/en/ethercat/index.php
> >
> > Etherlab and SOEM are both GPL (or want to be)
> >
> > The problem is with Beckhoff who own the EtherCAT trademark and
> > technology.
> 
> Then we need to come up with a new name for it, and this interface chip 
> Nicklas has used offloads the technology aspect. So it seems to me that 
> should cover those 2 items of concern. I haven't a clue what to use for 
> a name and anything I would suggest would disqualify itself based on the 
> clean room principle.

I could name the file "ethercat.c", soem is in a sub folder and set up a new 
repository on github? Or could I push somewhere else?

I created a local fork but needed some method to configure devices and decided 
a CANopen gateway may be a good solution, it is CiA 309 if I remember correct.


Nicklas Karlsson

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Re: [Emc-developers] Ethercat driver

[Jeff Epler]

On Sun, Feb 04, 2018 at 08:29:53PM +0100, Nicklas Karlsson wrote:
> https://openethercatsociety.github.io/doc/soem/index.html
> ...
> Features as of 1.2.0 :
> Changed license to GPLv2 only. Adresses leagal concerns about master 
> licensing.
> ...
> 
> So I guess it is OK.
> 

On this date, that page still contains the text

| You can use SOEM for the sole purpose of creating, using and/or
| selling or otherwise distributing an EtherCAT network master provided
| that an EtherCAT Master License is obtained from Beckhoff Automation
| GmbH.

restricting how the software may be used, modified, and distribured in
contradiciton of other terms of the GPL.

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Re: [Emc-developers] Ethercat driver

[Nicklas Karlsson]

https://openethercatsociety.github.io/doc/soem/index.html
...
Features as of 1.2.0 :
Changed license to GPLv2 only. Adresses leagal concerns about master 
licensing.
...

So I guess it is OK.


On Wed, 17 Jan 2018 09:27:25 -0500
Dave Cole  wrote:

> The text below is at the end of the SOEM page from the link below.
> https://openethercatsociety.github.io/doc/soem/index.html
> 
> So how does this work??   The SOEM software itself is GPL, but if you 
> implement an Ethercat master, you need to get a license ??
> 
> That's an interesting approach.
> 
> If the SOEM code is all GPL, then how could adding GPL code to GPL code 
> result in something other than GPL code ?
> 
>  From a practical standpoint, I think we need to figure out how to get 
> networked drives connected to LinuxCNC if we want LinuxCNC to live on.
> At some point analog servo drive interfaces will become like 5 1/4" 
> floppy drives...    They were once common.
> 
> Dave
> 
>  >
> 
> SOEM is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under 
> the terms of the GNU General Public License version 2 as published by 
> the Free Software Foundation.
> 
> SOEM is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY 
> WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or 
> FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for 
> more details.
> 
> As a special exception, if other files instantiate templates or use 
> macros or inline functions from this file, or you compile this file and 
> link it with other works to produce a work based on this file, this file 
> does not by itself cause the resulting work to be covered by the GNU 
> General Public License. However the source code for this file must still 
> be made available in accordance with section (3) of the GNU General 
> Public License.
> 
> This exception does not invalidate any other reasons why a work based on 
> this file might be covered by the GNU General Public License.
> 
> The EtherCAT Technology, the trade name and logo "EtherCAT" are the 
> intellectual property of, and protected by Beckhoff Automation GmbH. You 
> can use SOEM for the sole purpose of creating, using and/or selling or 
> otherwise distributing an EtherCAT network master provided that an 
> EtherCAT Master License is obtained from Beckhoff Automation GmbH.
> 
> In case you did not receive a copy of the EtherCAT Master License along 
> with SOEM write to Beckhoff Automation GmbH, Eiserstrasse 5, D-33415 
> Verl, Germany (www.beckhoff.com).
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On 1/16/2018 8:51 PM, Jeff Epler wrote:
> > Our policy is that any code added to LinuxCNC has to be compatible with
> > the license terms "GPL version 2 or any later version".
> > https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#GPLCompatibleLicenses
> >
> > Anything that imposes a restriction on how the software can be used (for
> > example, if it is claimed that using the software requires an additional
> > license, as Beckhoff Automation GmbH reportedly does) cannot be
> > incorporated.
> >
> > For a rather old thread on exactly the same topic, see this one from
> > 2013:
> > https://sourceforge.net/p/emc/mailman/emc-developers/thread/20131022150751.GB2631%40unpythonic.net/
> >
> > Jeff
> >
> > --
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Re: [Emc-developers] Ethercat driver

[Rod Webster]

If all that Linuxcnc does is talk to the GPL'ed EtherLab library, how is it
then you need to worry about trademarks and the like? Isn't that an issue
for the EtherLab team?
The LinuxCNC team has nothing to do with licensed material. The onus is on
the integrator to comply with any requirements just as he has to comply
with the requirements of the servos etc selected to go with his system.
Trademarks only give you protection if somebody attempts to pass off their
product as yours. You can still refer to a trademarked product in written
material but it is prudent to acknowledge the trademark.


Rod Webster
+61 435 765 611
Vehicle Modifications Network
www.vehiclemods.net.au


On 24 January 2018 at 04:48, Nicklas Karlsson 
wrote:

> > On 13 January 2018 at 15:06, Nicklas Karlsson <
> nicklas.karlsso...@gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> >
> > >
> > > I checked out via git, how do I procede if I want to commit via git?
> >
> >
> > You would push it to your own repository on github, then press the
>
> I make my own repository, it's not enought with a personal fork?
>
> > pull-request button on the LinuxCNC github.
>
> You know there this button is?
>
> > Though there are other ways, I believe.
> >
> > Are you sure that your driver isn't limited in it's GPL-compliance by the
> > terms of the EtherCAT license?
>
> I decided since it already is freely available I would probably not be
> sued in case I push it with my personal changes as part of Linuxcnc.
>
>
> 
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Re: [Emc-developers] Ethercat driver

[Nicklas Karlsson]

> On 13 January 2018 at 15:06, Nicklas Karlsson 
> wrote:
> 
> >
> > I checked out via git, how do I procede if I want to commit via git?
> 
> 
> You would push it to your own repository on github, then press the

I make my own repository, it's not enought with a personal fork?

> pull-request button on the LinuxCNC github.

You know there this button is?

> Though there are other ways, I believe.
> 
> Are you sure that your driver isn't limited in it's GPL-compliance by the
> terms of the EtherCAT license?

I decided since it already is freely available I would probably not be sued in 
case I push it with my personal changes as part of Linuxcnc.


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Re: [Emc-developers] Ethercat driver

[Nicklas Karlsson]

> On Tuesday 23 January 2018 08:01:01 andy pugh wrote:
> 
> > On 23 January 2018 at 03:26, Rod Webster  
> wrote:
> > > This link seems to confirm the Etherlab invocation is GPLv2 so you
> > > may be right!
> > > https://etherlab.org/en/ethercat/index.php
> >
> > Etherlab and SOEM are both GPL (or want to be)
> >
> > The problem is with Beckhoff who own the EtherCAT trademark and
> > technology.
> 
> Then we need to come up with a new name for it, and this interface chip 
> Nicklas has used offloads the technology aspect. So it seems to me that 
> should cover those 2 items of concern. I haven't a clue what to use for 
> a name and anything I would suggest would disqualify itself based on the 
> clean room principle.
> 
> Cheers, Gene Heskett

Ethernet cascaded shiftregister routing? Did not read the details but guess it 
come closes.

I made some local change so I guess I have to clone and start from a fresh copy 
before I could fork and commit. I feel relatively confident I should have 
nothing to fear so I should try to get it done soon.

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Re: [Emc-developers] Ethercat driver

[Dave Cole]

On 1/23/2018 8:01 AM, andy pugh wrote:

On 23 January 2018 at 03:26, Rod Webster  wrote:


This link seems to confirm the Etherlab invocation is GPLv2 so you may be
right!
https://etherlab.org/en/ethercat/index.php


Etherlab and SOEM are both GPL (or want to be)

The problem is with Beckhoff who own the EtherCAT trademark and
technology.


Yes, but you can't patent or protect "technology".   You can protect an 
implementation of technology via a patent and you can restrict the use 
of a Trademark in the marketing or sale of something.   If you 
acknowledge the trademark when used (you see that all of the time as 
notes at the end of documents) then I think that keeps you in the clear 
of the Trademark.


http://www.ipwatchdog.com/2014/02/15/protecting-ideas-can-ideas-be-protected-or-patented/id=48009/

LinuxCNC is not for sale, so I think that all we are concerned about is 
the freedom of the software to be used and altered without 
restrictions.    I don't see how a Trademark could do that. LinuxCNC 
only needs to say something like "EtherCat is a Trademark of 
Beckhoff" in the docs someplace.   Heck, stick it in the source code 
and be done with it.


Hey, we are already doing that on this webpage   > 
http://linuxcnc.org/community/


>>>

LINUX® is the registered trademark of Linus Torvalds in the U.S. and 
other countries. The registered trademark Linux® is used pursuant to a 
sublicense from LMI, the exclusive licensee of Linus Torvalds, owner of 
the mark on a world-wide basis.


The LinuxCNC project is not affiliated with Debian. Debian is a 
registered trademark owned by Software in the Public Interest, Inc.


The LinuxCNC project is not affiliated with UBUNTU. UBUNTU is a 
registered trademark owned by Canonical Limited.


<

And we are already dealing with Licenses as well as you can see. :-)

Dave

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Re: [Emc-developers] Ethercat driver

[Gene Heskett]

On Tuesday 23 January 2018 08:01:01 andy pugh wrote:

> On 23 January 2018 at 03:26, Rod Webster  
wrote:
> > This link seems to confirm the Etherlab invocation is GPLv2 so you
> > may be right!
> > https://etherlab.org/en/ethercat/index.php
>
> Etherlab and SOEM are both GPL (or want to be)
>
> The problem is with Beckhoff who own the EtherCAT trademark and
> technology.

Then we need to come up with a new name for it, and this interface chip 
Nicklas has used offloads the technology aspect. So it seems to me that 
should cover those 2 items of concern. I haven't a clue what to use for 
a name and anything I would suggest would disqualify itself based on the 
clean room principle.

Cheers, Gene Heskett
-- 
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 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
Genes Web page 

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Re: [Emc-developers] Ethercat driver

[andy pugh]

On 23 January 2018 at 03:26, Rod Webster  wrote:

> This link seems to confirm the Etherlab invocation is GPLv2 so you may be
> right!
> https://etherlab.org/en/ethercat/index.php


Etherlab and SOEM are both GPL (or want to be)

The problem is with Beckhoff who own the EtherCAT trademark and
technology.

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Re: [Emc-developers] Ethercat driver

[Rod Webster]

This link seems to confirm the Etherlab invocation is GPLv2 so you may be
right!
https://etherlab.org/en/ethercat/index.php

Rod Webster
+61 435 765 611
Vehicle Modifications Network
www.vehiclemods.net.au


On 23 January 2018 at 11:06, Gene Heskett  wrote:

> On Monday 22 January 2018 15:14:34 Rod Webster wrote:
>
> > Hi,
> >
> > Its been a long time but many years ago when working with Ghostscript
> > and commercial interfaces to it. The solution was (under their
> > license) to build an interface to the external library in such a way
> > if the external library/DLL wasn't there the software did not fail and
> > if another library with an identical interface to the published
> > interface was installed, the software would operate as normal. If the
> > library was not found, the software did not crash but it was not
> > functional. This required a bit more work on the part of the developer
> > as the DLL required to be loaded at runtime dynamically rather than
> > being linked statically at compile time.
> >
> > If such an approach was allowable under the LinuxCNC license, from the
> > users perspective all that he would need to do would be to install an
> > ethercat binary and ethercat protocol would be enabled as LinuxCNC's
> > code is totally compartmentalised from the commercial license. (kinda
> > like a software version of plugging in a Mesa Smart Serial device.)
> >
> > Rod Webster
> > +61 435 765 611
> > Vehicle Modifications Network
> > www.vehiclemods.net.au
> >
> > On 23 January 2018 at 05:38, Darren Conway 
> wrote:
> > > Hi
> > >
> > > Has anyone considered asking Bekhoff for their view on this issue?
> > >
> > > They might grant a GPL compatible license for LinuxCNC.
> > >
> > > Regards
> > >
> > > Darren Conway
> > >
> > > On 23.01.18 8:27 AM, Andy Pugh wrote:
> > >> On 22 Jan 2018, at 21:08, Nicklas Karlsson
> > >> 
> > >>
> > >>> wrote:
> > >>>
> > >>> In source code I got from soem there is GNU license but somewhere
> > >>> I also found an exception, below so I am a little bit confused.
> > >>
> > >> I have always been confused by this too.
> > >>
> > >> The worry is that if we distribute anything EtherCAT with LinuxCNC
> > >> then we obligate anyone who uses it to also seek a Bekhoff license.
> > >> So that would make our distribution not-GPL
> > >>
> > >> I think that the Free Software Foundation has lawyers, but can’t
> > >> recall if we asked them about this.
> > >>
> > >> Then you get into the murky shadows that allow Wine to exist.
>
> I can't seem to understand the problem. GPLv2 specifically prohibits any
> further restrictions. They have stated its GPLv2, so any further
> restrictions either remove it from GPLv2 coverage, or are illegal to
> apply to a GPLv2 license. I'd ask the question at the FSF.
>
> And how many of the court cases have been dropped once the plaintiff
> actually read the license vs how many times the plaintiff has been
> awarded the win against the GPLv2. That balance historically has been
> almost exclusively in favor of the GPLv2.
>
> Cheers, Gene Heskett
> --
> "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
>  soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
> -Ed Howdershelt (Author)
> Genes Web page 
>
> 
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Re: [Emc-developers] Ethercat driver

[Gene Heskett]

On Monday 22 January 2018 15:14:34 Rod Webster wrote:

> Hi,
>
> Its been a long time but many years ago when working with Ghostscript
> and commercial interfaces to it. The solution was (under their
> license) to build an interface to the external library in such a way
> if the external library/DLL wasn't there the software did not fail and
> if another library with an identical interface to the published
> interface was installed, the software would operate as normal. If the
> library was not found, the software did not crash but it was not
> functional. This required a bit more work on the part of the developer
> as the DLL required to be loaded at runtime dynamically rather than
> being linked statically at compile time.
>
> If such an approach was allowable under the LinuxCNC license, from the
> users perspective all that he would need to do would be to install an
> ethercat binary and ethercat protocol would be enabled as LinuxCNC's
> code is totally compartmentalised from the commercial license. (kinda
> like a software version of plugging in a Mesa Smart Serial device.)
>
> Rod Webster
> +61 435 765 611
> Vehicle Modifications Network
> www.vehiclemods.net.au
>
> On 23 January 2018 at 05:38, Darren Conway  
wrote:
> > Hi
> >
> > Has anyone considered asking Bekhoff for their view on this issue?
> >
> > They might grant a GPL compatible license for LinuxCNC.
> >
> > Regards
> >
> > Darren Conway
> >
> > On 23.01.18 8:27 AM, Andy Pugh wrote:
> >> On 22 Jan 2018, at 21:08, Nicklas Karlsson
> >> 
> >>
> >>> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> In source code I got from soem there is GNU license but somewhere
> >>> I also found an exception, below so I am a little bit confused.
> >>
> >> I have always been confused by this too.
> >>
> >> The worry is that if we distribute anything EtherCAT with LinuxCNC
> >> then we obligate anyone who uses it to also seek a Bekhoff license.
> >> So that would make our distribution not-GPL
> >>
> >> I think that the Free Software Foundation has lawyers, but can’t
> >> recall if we asked them about this.
> >>
> >> Then you get into the murky shadows that allow Wine to exist.

I can't seem to understand the problem. GPLv2 specifically prohibits any 
further restrictions. They have stated its GPLv2, so any further 
restrictions either remove it from GPLv2 coverage, or are illegal to 
apply to a GPLv2 license. I'd ask the question at the FSF.

And how many of the court cases have been dropped once the plaintiff 
actually read the license vs how many times the plaintiff has been 
awarded the win against the GPLv2. That balance historically has been 
almost exclusively in favor of the GPLv2.

Cheers, Gene Heskett
-- 
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 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
Genes Web page 

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Re: [Emc-developers] Ethercat driver

[Rod Webster]

Hi,

Its been a long time but many years ago when working with Ghostscript and
commercial interfaces to it. The solution was (under their license) to
build an interface to the external library in such a way if the external
library/DLL wasn't there the software did not fail and if another library
with an identical interface to the published interface was installed, the
software would operate as normal. If the library was not found, the
software did not crash but it was not functional. This required a bit more
work on the part of the developer as the DLL required to be loaded at
runtime dynamically rather than being linked statically at compile time.

If such an approach was allowable under the LinuxCNC license, from the
users perspective all that he would need to do would be to install an
ethercat binary and ethercat protocol would be enabled as LinuxCNC's code
is totally compartmentalised from the commercial license. (kinda like a
software version of plugging in a Mesa Smart Serial device.)

Rod Webster
+61 435 765 611
Vehicle Modifications Network
www.vehiclemods.net.au


On 23 January 2018 at 05:38, Darren Conway  wrote:

> Hi
>
> Has anyone considered asking Bekhoff for their view on this issue?
>
> They might grant a GPL compatible license for LinuxCNC.
>
> Regards
>
> Darren Conway
>
>
> On 23.01.18 8:27 AM, Andy Pugh wrote:
>
>>
>> On 22 Jan 2018, at 21:08, Nicklas Karlsson 
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>> In source code I got from soem there is GNU license but somewhere I also
>>> found an exception, below so I am a little bit confused.
>>>
>> I have always been confused by this too.
>>
>> The worry is that if we distribute anything EtherCAT with LinuxCNC then
>> we obligate anyone who uses it to also seek a Bekhoff license. So that
>> would make our distribution not-GPL
>>
>> I think that the Free Software Foundation has lawyers, but can’t recall
>> if we asked them about this.
>>
>> Then you get into the murky shadows that allow Wine to exist.
>>
>>
>> 
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Re: [Emc-developers] Ethercat driver

[Nicklas Karlsson]

On Tue, 23 Jan 2018 08:38:43 +1300
Darren Conway  wrote:

> Hi
> 
> Has anyone considered asking Bekhoff for their view on this issue?

As is now I use LAN9252, maybe that will not get them in the right mood. 
Anybody with an Beckhoff device?

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Re: [Emc-developers] Ethercat driver

[Darren Conway]

Hi

Has anyone considered asking Bekhoff for their view on this issue?

They might grant a GPL compatible license for LinuxCNC.

Regards

Darren Conway

On 23.01.18 8:27 AM, Andy Pugh wrote:



On 22 Jan 2018, at 21:08, Nicklas Karlsson  wrote:

In source code I got from soem there is GNU license but somewhere I also found 
an exception, below so I am a little bit confused.

I have always been confused by this too.

The worry is that if we distribute anything EtherCAT with LinuxCNC then we 
obligate anyone who uses it to also seek a Bekhoff license. So that would make 
our distribution not-GPL

I think that the Free Software Foundation has lawyers, but can’t recall if we 
asked them about this.

Then you get into the murky shadows that allow Wine to exist.


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Re: [Emc-developers] Ethercat driver

[Nicklas Karlsson]

On Mon, 22 Jan 2018 21:27:50 +0200
Andy Pugh  wrote:

> 
> 
> > On 22 Jan 2018, at 21:08, Nicklas Karlsson  
> > wrote:
> > 
> > In source code I got from soem there is GNU license but somewhere I also 
> > found an exception, below so I am a little bit confused.
> 
> I have always been confused by this too. 
> 
> The worry is that if we distribute anything EtherCAT with LinuxCNC then we 
> obligate anyone who uses it to also seek a Bekhoff license. So that would 
> make our distribution not-GPL

That's a problem. ,,,

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Re: [Emc-developers] Ethercat driver

[Andy Pugh]

> On 22 Jan 2018, at 21:08, Nicklas Karlsson  
> wrote:
> 
> In source code I got from soem there is GNU license but somewhere I also 
> found an exception, below so I am a little bit confused.

I have always been confused by this too. 

The worry is that if we distribute anything EtherCAT with LinuxCNC then we 
obligate anyone who uses it to also seek a Bekhoff license. So that would make 
our distribution not-GPL

I think that the Free Software Foundation has lawyers, but can’t recall if we 
asked them about this. 

Then you get into the murky shadows that allow Wine to exist. 


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Re: [Emc-developers] Ethercat driver

[Nicklas Karlsson]

On Tue, 16 Jan 2018 17:32:58 +0200
andy pugh  wrote:

> On 13 January 2018 at 15:06, Nicklas Karlsson 
> wrote:
> 
> >
> > I checked out via git, how do I procede if I want to commit via git?
> 
> 
> You would push it to your own repository on github, then press the
> pull-request button on the LinuxCNC github.
> 
> Though there are other ways, I believe.
> 
> Are you sure that your driver isn't limited in it's GPL-compliance by the
> terms of the EtherCAT license?

In source code I got from soem there is GNU license but somewhere I also found 
an exception, below so I am a little bit confused.

"The EtherCAT Technology, the trade name and logo "EtherCAT" are the 
intellectual
property of, and protected by Beckhoff Automation GmbH. You can use SOEM for the
sole purpose of creating, using and/or selling or otherwise distributing an
EtherCAT network master provided that an EtherCAT Master License is obtained
from Beckhoff Automation GmbH.

In case you did not receive a copy of the EtherCAT Master License along with
SOEM write to Beckhoff Automation GmbH, Eiserstrasse 5, D-33415 Verl, Germany
(www.beckhoff.com)."

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Re: [Emc-developers] Ethercat driver

[Nicklas Karlsson]

On Wed, 17 Jan 2018 19:56:21 -0500
Gene Heskett  wrote:

> On Wednesday 17 January 2018 17:20:47 Nicklas Karlsson wrote:
> 
> > On Wed, 17 Jan 2018 16:41:59 -0500
> >
> > Gene Heskett  wrote:
> > > On Wednesday 17 January 2018 11:10:53 Nicklas Karlsson wrote:
> > > > On Wed, 17 Jan 2018 09:27:25 -0500
> > > >
> > > > Dave Cole  wrote:
> > > > > The text below is at the end of the SOEM page from the link
> > > > > below. https://openethercatsociety.github.io/doc/soem/index.html
> > > > >
> > > > > So how does this work??   The SOEM software itself is GPL, but
> > > > > if you implement an Ethercat master, you need to get a license
> > > > > ??
> > > >
> > > > Why a license?
> > > >
> > > > I have nothing about sharing my work but copyright issues i
> > > > something different.
> > > >
> > > > Then in european union I read something about interoperability so
> > > > you are always allowed to make your own device to talk to other
> > > > device.
> > > >
> > > > > That's an interesting approach.
> > > > >
> > > > > If the SOEM code is all GPL, then how could adding GPL code to
> > > > > GPL code result in something other than GPL code ?
> > > > >
> > > > >  From a practical standpoint, I think we need to figure out how
> > > > > to get networked drives connected to LinuxCNC if we want
> > > > > LinuxCNC to live on. At some point analog servo drive interfaces
> > > > > will become like 5 1/4" floppy drives...    They were once
> > > > > common.
> > > >
> > > > Yes.
> > > >
> > > > Michael Büsch already implemented a profibus master. I have it
> > > > running against an IO module and millions of these kind of devices
> > > > have been sold. I think he implemented on Rasberry and I had some
> > > > timing issue before running on ordinary computer but have not
> > > > looked further because I have been busy with something really good
> > > > for servos and looking for a new woman.
> > > >
> > > > Bandwidth required to replace an analog signal may be surprisingly
> > > > high and for a control loop even though there are plenty of
> > > > bandwidth it need to split in many small messages. Ethercat solve
> > > > this problem in a similar way as cascade coupled shift registers.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > Nicklas Karlsson
> > >
> > > I think this might be right up PCW's alley. He is already selling
> > > some cards that expand via an rj45 jack. Perhaps he could chime in
> > > here as to the advantages and disadvantages of adapting the firmware
> > > to be something like this, but call it something other than
> > > ethercat.
> > >
> > > Changing the subject a bit while I ramble, we have some amazingly
> > > cheap rs485 devices about, costing less than a buck each in bags
> > > from ebay.
> >
> > Yes rs485 is a cheap and a very good driver. UART however have limited
> > speed and not the least clock accuracy problem at higher speed. With a
> > device with as many UART ports as needed this might be a very good
> > solution, speed could also be adapted to cable length then long cables
> > are needed.
> >
> Then one good uart, something that can run in the multimegahertz speeds, 
> later 16550's can, and some and gates to send or receive from that rs485 
> channel might be a lowercost item. ...

One the new Micro controllers usually with a Cortex-M*- CPU is a cheap item 
available from below $1 per piece and upwards. They usually have both UARTs and 
SPI(s) but no really good bus could be built by them.

Ethercat is a good bus and a LAN9252 from around $8 will connect them.


Nicklas Karlsson

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Re: [Emc-developers] Ethercat driver

[Gene Heskett]

On Thursday 18 January 2018 03:40:56 andy pugh wrote:

> On 17 January 2018 at 23:41, Gene Heskett  wrote:
> > I think this might be right up PCW's alley. He is already selling
> > some cards that expand via an rj45 jack.
>
> There is already at least one non-Mesa servo-drive that is
> controllable via the Mesa "Smart Serial" interface.
> Plug an STMBL drive into LinuxCNC and the HAL pins are all created
> automatically, just like for any other smart-serial device.
>
> But that isn't an answer for supporting existing EtherCAT devices with
> LinuxCNC.
>
>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=seEV_i7o1NI

I wasn't trying to imply that it was, just an alternative controller 
method that might be cheap and allow much longer cables. These things 
function as diff to ttl and vice versa, are apparently not too terribly 
fussy about the data rate, handily reaching the limits of one of these 
better stepper drivers without a problem, limit caused by the drivers 
own opto inputs seem to be around the 300-350 kilohertz rate.

Another comment re the SainSmart bob's and some of the others with opto's 
in the output paths. I found I had to set the stepper pulses for my A 
drive to about 2 u-secs longer before I could set a meaningfull 
step_scale. The A drive is using a 542T driver, which looks a lot like 
the older 2M542. But it doesn't program the same. I'd steer clear of 
that one since thats a speed limit we don't need. It too is on the 
SainSmart bob.

Cheers, Gene Heskett
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Re: [Emc-developers] Ethercat driver

[andy pugh]

On 17 January 2018 at 23:41, Gene Heskett  wrote:


> I think this might be right up PCW's alley. He is already selling some
> cards that expand via an rj45 jack.


There is already at least one non-Mesa servo-drive that is controllable via
the Mesa "Smart Serial" interface.
Plug an STMBL drive into LinuxCNC and the HAL pins are all created
automatically, just like for any other smart-serial device.

But that isn't an answer for supporting existing EtherCAT devices with
LinuxCNC.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=seEV_i7o1NI

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Re: [Emc-developers] Ethercat driver

[Gene Heskett]

On Wednesday 17 January 2018 17:20:47 Nicklas Karlsson wrote:

> On Wed, 17 Jan 2018 16:41:59 -0500
>
> Gene Heskett  wrote:
> > On Wednesday 17 January 2018 11:10:53 Nicklas Karlsson wrote:
> > > On Wed, 17 Jan 2018 09:27:25 -0500
> > >
> > > Dave Cole  wrote:
> > > > The text below is at the end of the SOEM page from the link
> > > > below. https://openethercatsociety.github.io/doc/soem/index.html
> > > >
> > > > So how does this work??   The SOEM software itself is GPL, but
> > > > if you implement an Ethercat master, you need to get a license
> > > > ??
> > >
> > > Why a license?
> > >
> > > I have nothing about sharing my work but copyright issues i
> > > something different.
> > >
> > > Then in european union I read something about interoperability so
> > > you are always allowed to make your own device to talk to other
> > > device.
> > >
> > > > That's an interesting approach.
> > > >
> > > > If the SOEM code is all GPL, then how could adding GPL code to
> > > > GPL code result in something other than GPL code ?
> > > >
> > > >  From a practical standpoint, I think we need to figure out how
> > > > to get networked drives connected to LinuxCNC if we want
> > > > LinuxCNC to live on. At some point analog servo drive interfaces
> > > > will become like 5 1/4" floppy drives...    They were once
> > > > common.
> > >
> > > Yes.
> > >
> > > Michael Büsch already implemented a profibus master. I have it
> > > running against an IO module and millions of these kind of devices
> > > have been sold. I think he implemented on Rasberry and I had some
> > > timing issue before running on ordinary computer but have not
> > > looked further because I have been busy with something really good
> > > for servos and looking for a new woman.
> > >
> > > Bandwidth required to replace an analog signal may be surprisingly
> > > high and for a control loop even though there are plenty of
> > > bandwidth it need to split in many small messages. Ethercat solve
> > > this problem in a similar way as cascade coupled shift registers.
> > >
> > >
> > > Nicklas Karlsson
> >
> > I think this might be right up PCW's alley. He is already selling
> > some cards that expand via an rj45 jack. Perhaps he could chime in
> > here as to the advantages and disadvantages of adapting the firmware
> > to be something like this, but call it something other than
> > ethercat.
> >
> > Changing the subject a bit while I ramble, we have some amazingly
> > cheap rs485 devices about, costing less than a buck each in bags
> > from ebay.
>
> Yes rs485 is a cheap and a very good driver. UART however have limited
> speed and not the least clock accuracy problem at higher speed. With a
> device with as many UART ports as needed this might be a very good
> solution, speed could also be adapted to cable length then long cables
> are needed.
>
Then one good uart, something that can run in the multimegahertz speeds, 
later 16550's can, and some and gates to send or receive from that rs485 
channel might be a lowercost item. I am doing this "chip selection" with 
and2's in the G0704 since the charge pump is limited to one output and I 
needed at least 2 just to softstart the spindle motors PSU. Otherwise 
the power up inrush trips a 30 amp breaker in the service. there are 
today, lots ways around that. 

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Cheers, Gene Heskett
The above content, added by Maurice E. Heskett, is Copyright 2018 by 
Maurice E. Heskett.
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Re: [Emc-developers] Ethercat driver

[Nicklas Karlsson]

On Wed, 17 Jan 2018 16:41:59 -0500
Gene Heskett  wrote:

> On Wednesday 17 January 2018 11:10:53 Nicklas Karlsson wrote:
> 
> > On Wed, 17 Jan 2018 09:27:25 -0500
> >
> > Dave Cole  wrote:
> > > The text below is at the end of the SOEM page from the link below.
> > > https://openethercatsociety.github.io/doc/soem/index.html
> > >
> > > So how does this work??   The SOEM software itself is GPL, but if
> > > you implement an Ethercat master, you need to get a license ??
> >
> > Why a license?
> >
> > I have nothing about sharing my work but copyright issues i something
> > different.
> >
> > Then in european union I read something about interoperability so you
> > are always allowed to make your own device to talk to other device.
> >
> > > That's an interesting approach.
> > >
> > > If the SOEM code is all GPL, then how could adding GPL code to GPL
> > > code result in something other than GPL code ?
> > >
> > >  From a practical standpoint, I think we need to figure out how to
> > > get networked drives connected to LinuxCNC if we want LinuxCNC to
> > > live on. At some point analog servo drive interfaces will become
> > > like 5 1/4" floppy drives...    They were once common.
> >
> > Yes.
> >
> > Michael Büsch already implemented a profibus master. I have it running
> > against an IO module and millions of these kind of devices have been
> > sold. I think he implemented on Rasberry and I had some timing issue
> > before running on ordinary computer but have not looked further
> > because I have been busy with something really good for servos and
> > looking for a new woman.
> >
> > Bandwidth required to replace an analog signal may be surprisingly
> > high and for a control loop even though there are plenty of bandwidth
> > it need to split in many small messages. Ethercat solve this problem
> > in a similar way as cascade coupled shift registers.
> >
> >
> > Nicklas Karlsson
> >
> I think this might be right up PCW's alley. He is already selling some 
> cards that expand via an rj45 jack. Perhaps he could chime in here as to 
> the advantages and disadvantages of adapting the firmware to be 
> something like this, but call it something other than ethercat.
> 
> Changing the subject a bit while I ramble, we have some amazingly cheap 
> rs485 devices about, costing less than a buck each in bags from ebay.

Yes rs485 is a cheap and a very good driver. UART however have limited speed 
and not the least clock accuracy problem at higher speed. With a device with as 
many UART ports as needed this might be a very good solution, speed could also 
be adapted to cable length then long cables are needed.

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Re: [Emc-developers] Ethercat driver

[Gene Heskett]

On Wednesday 17 January 2018 11:10:53 Nicklas Karlsson wrote:

> On Wed, 17 Jan 2018 09:27:25 -0500
>
> Dave Cole  wrote:
> > The text below is at the end of the SOEM page from the link below.
> > https://openethercatsociety.github.io/doc/soem/index.html
> >
> > So how does this work??   The SOEM software itself is GPL, but if
> > you implement an Ethercat master, you need to get a license ??
>
> Why a license?
>
> I have nothing about sharing my work but copyright issues i something
> different.
>
> Then in european union I read something about interoperability so you
> are always allowed to make your own device to talk to other device.
>
> > That's an interesting approach.
> >
> > If the SOEM code is all GPL, then how could adding GPL code to GPL
> > code result in something other than GPL code ?
> >
> >  From a practical standpoint, I think we need to figure out how to
> > get networked drives connected to LinuxCNC if we want LinuxCNC to
> > live on. At some point analog servo drive interfaces will become
> > like 5 1/4" floppy drives...    They were once common.
>
> Yes.
>
> Michael Büsch already implemented a profibus master. I have it running
> against an IO module and millions of these kind of devices have been
> sold. I think he implemented on Rasberry and I had some timing issue
> before running on ordinary computer but have not looked further
> because I have been busy with something really good for servos and
> looking for a new woman.
>
> Bandwidth required to replace an analog signal may be surprisingly
> high and for a control loop even though there are plenty of bandwidth
> it need to split in many small messages. Ethercat solve this problem
> in a similar way as cascade coupled shift registers.
>
>
> Nicklas Karlsson
>
I think this might be right up PCW's alley. He is already selling some 
cards that expand via an rj45 jack. Perhaps he could chime in here as to 
the advantages and disadvantages of adapting the firmware to be 
something like this, but call it something other than ethercat.

Changing the subject a bit while I ramble, we have some amazingly cheap 
rs485 devices about, costing less than a buck each in bags from ebay.

These can be full duplex, and rows of them could be made on a breakout 
card, all we need is an effective chip selection mechanism. I recently 
used a pair of them as the receivers for an encoder with differential 
outputs by disabling the transmit function. They are outputting quite 
square waves to the A/B inputs of a 5i25, with a 1000 line encoder 
spinning in the 8 to 10k revs region as the encoder is on the rear of 
that 1hp, 90 volt rated, motor while the motor is being fed around 123 
volts. I figure I am getting more than 1.5 hp out of it. With the OEM 
triac based controller, it turned the spindle 2200 revs. With this 
lashup, 3k is usable for 2 minutes as there seems to be a thermal switch 
in the motor armature, (but the motors heating cannot be detected) and 
2750 forever. There isn't any reason a bunch of these couldn't be 
associated, one to a servo axis, and I don't think they would be a 
bandwidth problem doing it. All we need are the interfaces ( more of 
these facing the cable ) and whatever servo driver is to be used, Jon's 
pwm-servo comes to mind, mainly because I've found it quite usable as 
spindle controllers on my smaller stuff. PMDC motors up to 2 hp are 
right in its bailiwick.

This is a case of doubleing the speed of my G0704 when I replaced the 
intended for mach use BoB on it with a SainSmart BoB, also intended for 
mach, getting rid of all opto-isolators in the the output paths. I had 
to bypass them for the two inputs I used for the encoder because they 
quit functioning at about 400 motor rpms, opto's wwyy to 
slow.

But getting rid of the slow opto's in the step/dir paths has allowed me 
to cut at least a full microsecond off the step driver timings, I am 
still experimenting with that, and the nice clean pulses to the drivers 
has taken me from 55 ipm without stalls speeds to 110 ipm w/o any 
stalls, includeing the z motor while lifting that 50+ pound head, with 
max_accel's in the 140 range. Just a bump and the table or the head is 
now moving at 110 ipm. These motor drivers all have their own much 
faster opto's for that, so use them. The difference in speed is the 
SainSmart bob and its lack of opto's in the output pins.

I did find, finally, the reason for the extremely letharic accel's once 
homed.

Linuxcnc will complain about missing AXIS_L limits and refuse to start, 
but not about missing [AXIS_L] MAX_VEL or MAX_ACCEL in your config 
files. IMO it should, but doesn't, it just kills the machines 
performance. Shame on LinuxCNC.

I thought the conversion to JOINT_N nomenclature was complete but it is 
not, so yesterday while reading the docs and finding those two vars were 
still listed under the axis heading, I put them back in the ini. Problem 
solved with a vengeance because I 

Re: [Emc-developers] Ethercat driver

[Dave Cole]

Why a license?


I have no idea.  It sounds like they want you to ask permission.
However I am quite sure the software will work without permission being granted.
So what's the point?

And if you obtained a license, what exactly do you do with it?
Print it out and paste it on the wall?  Put in in your wallet next to your 
fishing and driving license?

Was "Ethernet" ever licensed?  I was around when DEC first started selling Ethernet 
systems.   Back then there was a lot of mystery (and cost) around setting up an Ethernet system.  I 
remember a tap kit for semi-rigid Ethernet cable costing thousands of dollars.   I still have some 
of that "cable" around here someplace.


On 1/17/2018 11:10 AM, Nicklas Karlsson wrote:

On Wed, 17 Jan 2018 09:27:25 -0500
Dave Cole  wrote:


The text below is at the end of the SOEM page from the link below.
https://openethercatsociety.github.io/doc/soem/index.html

So how does this work??   The SOEM software itself is GPL, but if you
implement an Ethercat master, you need to get a license ??

Why a license?

I have nothing about sharing my work but copyright issues i something different.

Then in european union I read something about interoperability so you are 
always allowed to make your own device to talk to other device.


That's an interesting approach.

If the SOEM code is all GPL, then how could adding GPL code to GPL code
result in something other than GPL code ?

  From a practical standpoint, I think we need to figure out how to get
networked drives connected to LinuxCNC if we want LinuxCNC to live on.
At some point analog servo drive interfaces will become like 5 1/4"
floppy drives...    They were once common.

Yes.

Michael Büsch already implemented a profibus master. I have it running against 
an IO module and millions of these kind of devices have been sold. I think he 
implemented on Rasberry and I had some timing issue before running on ordinary 
computer but have not looked further because I have been busy with something 
really good for servos and looking for a new woman.

Bandwidth required to replace an analog signal may be surprisingly high and for 
a control loop even though there are plenty of bandwidth it need to split in 
many small messages. Ethercat solve this problem in a similar way as cascade 
coupled shift registers.


Nicklas Karlsson

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Re: [Emc-developers] Ethercat driver

[Nicklas Karlsson]

On Wed, 17 Jan 2018 09:27:25 -0500
Dave Cole  wrote:

> The text below is at the end of the SOEM page from the link below.
> https://openethercatsociety.github.io/doc/soem/index.html
> 
> So how does this work??   The SOEM software itself is GPL, but if you 
> implement an Ethercat master, you need to get a license ??

Why a license?

I have nothing about sharing my work but copyright issues i something different.

Then in european union I read something about interoperability so you are 
always allowed to make your own device to talk to other device.

> That's an interesting approach.
> 
> If the SOEM code is all GPL, then how could adding GPL code to GPL code 
> result in something other than GPL code ?
> 
>  From a practical standpoint, I think we need to figure out how to get 
> networked drives connected to LinuxCNC if we want LinuxCNC to live on.
> At some point analog servo drive interfaces will become like 5 1/4" 
> floppy drives...    They were once common.

Yes.

Michael Büsch already implemented a profibus master. I have it running against 
an IO module and millions of these kind of devices have been sold. I think he 
implemented on Rasberry and I had some timing issue before running on ordinary 
computer but have not looked further because I have been busy with something 
really good for servos and looking for a new woman.

Bandwidth required to replace an analog signal may be surprisingly high and for 
a control loop even though there are plenty of bandwidth it need to split in 
many small messages. Ethercat solve this problem in a similar way as cascade 
coupled shift registers.


Nicklas Karlsson

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Re: [Emc-developers] Ethercat driver

[Gene Heskett]

On Wednesday 17 January 2018 09:27:25 Dave Cole wrote:

> The text below is at the end of the SOEM page from the link below.
> https://openethercatsociety.github.io/doc/soem/index.html
>
> So how does this work??   The SOEM software itself is GPL, but if you
> implement an Ethercat master, you need to get a license ??
>
> That's an interesting approach.
>
> If the SOEM code is all GPL, then how could adding GPL code to GPL
> code result in something other than GPL code ?
>
>  From a practical standpoint, I think we need to figure out how to get
> networked drives connected to LinuxCNC if we want LinuxCNC to live on.
> At some point analog servo drive interfaces will become like 5 1/4"
> floppy drives...    They were once common.
>
> Dave
>
>
>
> SOEM is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under
> the terms of the GNU General Public License version 2 as published by
> the Free Software Foundation.
>
That says it all since the GPLv2, the last time I read it, did not allow 
further restrictions. But just to keep the legal types under control, I 
think I'd want to see a court precedence judgement saying so.

Fork it, changing its name so as not to clash with their trademarks seems 
like the best way forward.

> SOEM is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT
> ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or
> FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License
> for more details.
>
> As a special exception, if other files instantiate templates or use
> macros or inline functions from this file, or you compile this file
> and link it with other works to produce a work based on this file,
> this file does not by itself cause the resulting work to be covered by
> the GNU General Public License. However the source code for this file
> must still be made available in accordance with section (3) of the GNU
> General Public License.
>
> This exception does not invalidate any other reasons why a work based
> on this file might be covered by the GNU General Public License.
>
> The EtherCAT Technology, the trade name and logo "EtherCAT" are the
> intellectual property of, and protected by Beckhoff Automation GmbH.
> You can use SOEM for the sole purpose of creating, using and/or
> selling or otherwise distributing an EtherCAT network master provided
> that an EtherCAT Master License is obtained from Beckhoff Automation
> GmbH.
>
> In case you did not receive a copy of the EtherCAT Master License
> along with SOEM write to Beckhoff Automation GmbH, Eiserstrasse 5,
> D-33415 Verl, Germany (www.beckhoff.com).
>
>
> 
>
> On 1/16/2018 8:51 PM, Jeff Epler wrote:
> > Our policy is that any code added to LinuxCNC has to be compatible
> > with the license terms "GPL version 2 or any later version".
> > https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#GPLCompatibleLicenses
> >
> > Anything that imposes a restriction on how the software can be used
> > (for example, if it is claimed that using the software requires an
> > additional license, as Beckhoff Automation GmbH reportedly does)
> > cannot be incorporated.
> >
> > For a rather old thread on exactly the same topic, see this one from
> > 2013:
> > https://sourceforge.net/p/emc/mailman/emc-developers/thread/20131022
> >150751.GB2631%40unpythonic.net/
> >
> > Jeff
> >
> > 
> >-- Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's
> > most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot
> > ___
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> > Emc-developers@lists.sourceforge.net
> > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-developers
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Cheers, Gene Heskett
The above content, added by Maurice E. Heskett, is Copyright 2018 by 
Maurice E. Heskett.
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Genes Web page 

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Re: [Emc-developers] Ethercat driver

[Dave Cole]

The text below is at the end of the SOEM page from the link below.
https://openethercatsociety.github.io/doc/soem/index.html

So how does this work??   The SOEM software itself is GPL, but if you 
implement an Ethercat master, you need to get a license ??


That's an interesting approach.

If the SOEM code is all GPL, then how could adding GPL code to GPL code 
result in something other than GPL code ?


From a practical standpoint, I think we need to figure out how to get 
networked drives connected to LinuxCNC if we want LinuxCNC to live on.
At some point analog servo drive interfaces will become like 5 1/4" 
floppy drives...    They were once common.


Dave

>

SOEM is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under 
the terms of the GNU General Public License version 2 as published by 
the Free Software Foundation.


SOEM is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY 
WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or 
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for 
more details.


As a special exception, if other files instantiate templates or use 
macros or inline functions from this file, or you compile this file and 
link it with other works to produce a work based on this file, this file 
does not by itself cause the resulting work to be covered by the GNU 
General Public License. However the source code for this file must still 
be made available in accordance with section (3) of the GNU General 
Public License.


This exception does not invalidate any other reasons why a work based on 
this file might be covered by the GNU General Public License.


The EtherCAT Technology, the trade name and logo "EtherCAT" are the 
intellectual property of, and protected by Beckhoff Automation GmbH. You 
can use SOEM for the sole purpose of creating, using and/or selling or 
otherwise distributing an EtherCAT network master provided that an 
EtherCAT Master License is obtained from Beckhoff Automation GmbH.


In case you did not receive a copy of the EtherCAT Master License along 
with SOEM write to Beckhoff Automation GmbH, Eiserstrasse 5, D-33415 
Verl, Germany (www.beckhoff.com).





On 1/16/2018 8:51 PM, Jeff Epler wrote:

Our policy is that any code added to LinuxCNC has to be compatible with
the license terms "GPL version 2 or any later version".
https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#GPLCompatibleLicenses

Anything that imposes a restriction on how the software can be used (for
example, if it is claimed that using the software requires an additional
license, as Beckhoff Automation GmbH reportedly does) cannot be
incorporated.

For a rather old thread on exactly the same topic, see this one from
2013:
https://sourceforge.net/p/emc/mailman/emc-developers/thread/20131022150751.GB2631%40unpythonic.net/

Jeff

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Re: [Emc-developers] Ethercat driver

[Nicklas Karlsson]

I will look into this.

2018-01-17 2:51 GMT+01:00 Jeff Epler :

> Our policy is that any code added to LinuxCNC has to be compatible with
> the license terms "GPL version 2 or any later version".
> https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#GPLCompatibleLicenses
>
> Anything that imposes a restriction on how the software can be used (for
> example, if it is claimed that using the software requires an additional
> license, as Beckhoff Automation GmbH reportedly does) cannot be
> incorporated.
>
> For a rather old thread on exactly the same topic, see this one from
> 2013:
> https://sourceforge.net/p/emc/mailman/emc-developers/thread/
> 20131022150751.GB2631%40unpythonic.net/
>
> Jeff
>
> 
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Re: [Emc-developers] Ethercat driver

[Jeff Epler]

Our policy is that any code added to LinuxCNC has to be compatible with
the license terms "GPL version 2 or any later version".
https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#GPLCompatibleLicenses

Anything that imposes a restriction on how the software can be used (for
example, if it is claimed that using the software requires an additional
license, as Beckhoff Automation GmbH reportedly does) cannot be
incorporated.

For a rather old thread on exactly the same topic, see this one from
2013:
https://sourceforge.net/p/emc/mailman/emc-developers/thread/20131022150751.GB2631%40unpythonic.net/

Jeff

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Re: [Emc-developers] Ethercat driver

[andy pugh]

On 16 January 2018 at 18:52, Nicklas Karlsson 
wrote:ause of lack of official company home page.
>
>
> Software is basically "soem" https://openethercatsociety.
> github.io/doc/soem/index.html
>

I would very much like to see EtherCAT supported by LinuxCNC, but this part
of the SOEM license is (I think) a problem:

"The EtherCAT Technology, the trade name and logo "EtherCAT" are the
intellectual property of, and protected by Beckhoff Automation GmbH. You
can use SOEM for the sole purpose of creating, using and/or selling or
otherwise distributing an EtherCAT network master provided that an EtherCAT
Master License is obtained from Beckhoff Automation GmbH"

What this means is that if we distribute SOEM with LinuxCNC then (as I
understand it, and I am not a lawyer) then we obligate any LinuxCNC user
who uses that distribution to obtain a licence from Beckhof. (Even if they
don't actively use it, but that part is rather unclear to me)

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Re: [Emc-developers] Ethercat driver

[Nicklas Karlsson]

> On 13 January 2018 at 15:06, Nicklas Karlsson 
> wrote:
> 
> >
> > I checked out via git, how do I procede if I want to commit via git?
> 
> 
> You would push it to your own repository on github, then press the
> pull-request button on the LinuxCNC github.
> 
> Though there are other ways, I believe.
> 
> Are you sure that your driver isn't limited in it's GPL-compliance by the
> terms of the EtherCAT license?

I tried the tools possible to download from Beckhoff without registration since 
I fail registration because of lack of official company home page.

Software is basically "soem" 
https://openethercatsociety.github.io/doc/soem/index.html there I made som 
small modification to simple_test. main(...) was replaced with rtapi_main(...). 
Periodically run code where put in and exported with hel_export_funct(...). 
Some pins where added with a few rows of code to transfer data between these 
and ethercat data.

I think I get enough time to take a closer look this weekend.


Nicklas Karlsson

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Re: [Emc-developers] Ethercat driver

[andy pugh]

On 13 January 2018 at 15:06, Nicklas Karlsson 
wrote:

>
> I checked out via git, how do I procede if I want to commit via git?


You would push it to your own repository on github, then press the
pull-request button on the LinuxCNC github.

Though there are other ways, I believe.

Are you sure that your driver isn't limited in it's GPL-compliance by the
terms of the EtherCAT license?

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[Emc-developers] Ethercat driver

[Nicklas Karlsson]

I made an Ethercat driver using a soem and it is in working condition although 
with hardcoded configuration. I intend to continue development but will 
probably spend a few days on slave nodes first.

I checked out via git, how do I procede if I want to commit via git?

There som extra files in sub directory to drivers and few extra lines in 
Makfile to make them compile.


Nicklas Karlsson

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[Emc-developers] EtherCat / Analogue command combo

[petr ruzicka]

Good Day 
It's nice to be back in the forum and see that people are still hammering out 
the bugs.. 
Here is a tricky one.. Is it possible to have Ethercat control for axis 
(3-5axis )  and old tyle +-10VDC for the spindle? 
I'm asking because made a bubu and ordered ethercat servopacks , however the 
main spindle is Fanuc original and trying to keep it that way so save some..?! 
Any ideas are welcome. 
Peter

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Re: [Emc-developers] EtherCAT

[Jan de Kruyf]

So perhaps this is the right time for the ultimate solution:

--lets stop lusting after the idols of Beckhoff.--

I have and I burned badly. Lots of good productive time down the drain,
because I liked the IgH stack so much.
And of course I still respect that piece of software. But in my experience
the Beckhoff attitude, the Beckhoff hardware and Beckhoff service are bad
news.
The hardware changes version every 5 minutes (read the configuration files)
and when you need real service you get the Disperin solution.
A while back I spend some very expensive money (i.e. lots of it) sorting
out an intermittent problem in a 10 axes machine running on a Beckhoff NT
computer. Beckhoff in Verl could not tell me (at any price) how to monitor
the Sercos loop in a case like this. I had to find it out myself.
In an Opensource environment that is off course quite acceptable, but THIS
WAS NOT. (And I dont think it even fair on the local agent to talk about
them)

In my experience that company has sold its soul to Microsoft, which is good
for business, but bad for technological exellence.

Perhaps this is a good solution to the communities dilemma:

http://www.ethernet-powerlink.org/

The opensource stack might be configured as a master or a slave (good for
building your own io) and WAGO and a few others sell io off the shelf.

cheers,


j.







On Fri, Oct 25, 2013 at 2:57 AM, EBo e...@sandien.com wrote:

 On Oct 24 2013 2:23 PM, John Morris wrote:
  On 10/24/2013 02:06 PM, andy pugh wrote:
  On 24 October 2013 19:55, John Morris j...@zultron.com wrote:
 
  I believe that these restrictions mean that neither the LinuxCNC
  project
  nor anyone else may distribute EtherCAT drivers in source code form
  or
  otherwise, since with EtherCAT drivers, the software would
  essentially
  become an 'EtherCAT device' subject to Beckhoff's licensing
  requirements.
 
  Does it matter that the HAL driver in question is not itself an
  EtherCAT master, but simply a glue layer between HAL and a
  third-party
  EtherCAT Master?
  (An inexact analogy would be a GPL filter to save a document in
  Microsoft Word format)
 
  I'm no authority at all, of course, just trying to interpret these
  matters for myself.  I was becoming involved with packaging EtherCAT
  before this topic was raised, so it affects me personally.
 
  I'm focusing on the paragraph of Gerd's email following the title
  'For
  product /device manufacturers'.
 
  He writes, 'Making, marketing and sale of a product making use of the
  EtherCAT technology requires membership in the ETG and licensing of
  the
  technology'.  This sounds like LinuxCNC would qualify as such a
  product,
  and therefore those of us engaged in those activities (most all of us
  here in emc-developers) would be bound by those requirements, were
  EtherCAT to be included.
 
  A bit further down, he writes, 'if a product is a master stack
  software,
  a vendor of the master stack or the master device does require a
  technology license agreement for the master product'.  I don't
  understand what 'master device' means or when the term would apply to
  LinuxCNC or systems it runs on.  In any case, it does apply to IgH's
  EtherCAT Master for Linux implementation, and is a 'further
  restriction'
  explicitly prohibited by the GPL.

 We are going to run around and around and around wasting time on this
 until someone 1) emails both IgH and FSF and ask for a determination on
 a) will LinuxCNC require to have such an agreement, and b) if their
 added requirement is a violation of the GPL; or 2) someone hires a
 copyright lawyer to sort it out.  All us arguing about it is a wast of
 time unless somone here IS actually a lawyer, hired one, or emailed the
 two principal determining parties.


 --
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Re: [Emc-developers] EtherCAT

[Gene Heskett]

On Friday 25 October 2013 12:51:37 Jan de Kruyf did opine:

 So perhaps this is the right time for the ultimate solution:
 
 --lets stop lusting after the idols of Beckhoff.--
 
 I have and I burned badly. Lots of good productive time down the drain,
 because I liked the IgH stack so much.
 And of course I still respect that piece of software. But in my
 experience the Beckhoff attitude, the Beckhoff hardware and Beckhoff
 service are bad news.
 The hardware changes version every 5 minutes (read the configuration
 files) and when you need real service you get the Disperin solution.
 A while back I spend some very expensive money (i.e. lots of it) sorting
 out an intermittent problem in a 10 axes machine running on a Beckhoff
 NT computer. Beckhoff in Verl could not tell me (at any price) how to
 monitor the Sercos loop in a case like this. I had to find it out
 myself. In an Opensource environment that is off course quite
 acceptable, but THIS WAS NOT. (And I dont think it even fair on the
 local agent to talk about them)
 
 In my experience that company has sold its soul to Microsoft, which is
 good for business, but bad for technological exellence.
 
 Perhaps this is a good solution to the communities dilemma:
 
 http://www.ethernet-powerlink.org/
 
 The opensource stack might be configured as a master or a slave (good
 for building your own io) and WAGO and a few others sell io off the
 shelf.
 
 cheers,
 
 
 j.

Sounds interesting Jan, but the site isn't 100% functional.  I ran into 2 
links that gave me black screens forever.

And I was not able to determine if it works using OTS hardware for the 
ethernet itself.
 
 On Fri, Oct 25, 2013 at 2:57 AM, EBo e...@sandien.com wrote:
  On Oct 24 2013 2:23 PM, John Morris wrote:
   On 10/24/2013 02:06 PM, andy pugh wrote:
   On 24 October 2013 19:55, John Morris j...@zultron.com wrote:
   I believe that these restrictions mean that neither the LinuxCNC
   project
   nor anyone else may distribute EtherCAT drivers in source code
   form or
   otherwise, since with EtherCAT drivers, the software would
   essentially
   become an 'EtherCAT device' subject to Beckhoff's licensing
   requirements.
   
   Does it matter that the HAL driver in question is not itself an
   EtherCAT master, but simply a glue layer between HAL and a
   third-party
   EtherCAT Master?
   (An inexact analogy would be a GPL filter to save a document in
   Microsoft Word format)
   
   I'm no authority at all, of course, just trying to interpret these
   matters for myself.  I was becoming involved with packaging EtherCAT
   before this topic was raised, so it affects me personally.
   
   I'm focusing on the paragraph of Gerd's email following the title
   'For
   product /device manufacturers'.
   
   He writes, 'Making, marketing and sale of a product making use of
   the EtherCAT technology requires membership in the ETG and
   licensing of the
   technology'.  This sounds like LinuxCNC would qualify as such a
   product,
   and therefore those of us engaged in those activities (most all of
   us here in emc-developers) would be bound by those requirements,
   were EtherCAT to be included.
   
   A bit further down, he writes, 'if a product is a master stack
   software,
   a vendor of the master stack or the master device does require a
   technology license agreement for the master product'.  I don't
   understand what 'master device' means or when the term would apply
   to LinuxCNC or systems it runs on.  In any case, it does apply to
   IgH's EtherCAT Master for Linux implementation, and is a 'further
   restriction'
   explicitly prohibited by the GPL.
  
  We are going to run around and around and around wasting time on this
  until someone 1) emails both IgH and FSF and ask for a determination
  on a) will LinuxCNC require to have such an agreement, and b) if
  their added requirement is a violation of the GPL; or 2) someone
  hires a copyright lawyer to sort it out.  All us arguing about it is
  a wast of time unless somone here IS actually a lawyer, hired one, or
  emailed the two principal determining parties.
  
  
  --
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  Explore tips for MPI, OpenMP, advanced profiling, and more. Get the
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  the latest Intel processors and coprocessors. See abstracts and
  register 
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Re: [Emc-developers] EtherCAT

[Jan de Kruyf]

Perhaps you have to register for those screens Gene, I forget, it is a
while ago I went through it.

There are lots of pdf's available also.

The software stack comes from here:
http://www.systec-electronic.com/html/index.pl/en_download_OpenPOWERLINK

it is not as nice as IgH, bu it is manageable.

It will work with shop hardware but this is always a bit of a 2sided coin.
to get it working at a predictable speed the eth driver might need some
polishing as they did for the IgH stack. That issue will always be with us.

cheers,

j.






On Fri, Oct 25, 2013 at 6:54 PM, Gene Heskett ghesk...@wdtv.com wrote:

 On Friday 25 October 2013 12:51:37 Jan de Kruyf did opine:

  So perhaps this is the right time for the ultimate solution:
 
  --lets stop lusting after the idols of Beckhoff.--
 
  I have and I burned badly. Lots of good productive time down the drain,
  because I liked the IgH stack so much.
  And of course I still respect that piece of software. But in my
  experience the Beckhoff attitude, the Beckhoff hardware and Beckhoff
  service are bad news.
  The hardware changes version every 5 minutes (read the configuration
  files) and when you need real service you get the Disperin solution.
  A while back I spend some very expensive money (i.e. lots of it) sorting
  out an intermittent problem in a 10 axes machine running on a Beckhoff
  NT computer. Beckhoff in Verl could not tell me (at any price) how to
  monitor the Sercos loop in a case like this. I had to find it out
  myself. In an Opensource environment that is off course quite
  acceptable, but THIS WAS NOT. (And I dont think it even fair on the
  local agent to talk about them)
 
  In my experience that company has sold its soul to Microsoft, which is
  good for business, but bad for technological exellence.
 
  Perhaps this is a good solution to the communities dilemma:
 
  http://www.ethernet-powerlink.org/
 
  The opensource stack might be configured as a master or a slave (good
  for building your own io) and WAGO and a few others sell io off the
  shelf.
 
  cheers,
 
 
  j.

 Sounds interesting Jan, but the site isn't 100% functional.  I ran into 2
 links that gave me black screens forever.

 And I was not able to determine if it works using OTS hardware for the
 ethernet itself.

  On Fri, Oct 25, 2013 at 2:57 AM, EBo e...@sandien.com wrote:
   On Oct 24 2013 2:23 PM, John Morris wrote:
On 10/24/2013 02:06 PM, andy pugh wrote:
On 24 October 2013 19:55, John Morris j...@zultron.com wrote:
I believe that these restrictions mean that neither the LinuxCNC
project
nor anyone else may distribute EtherCAT drivers in source code
form or
otherwise, since with EtherCAT drivers, the software would
essentially
become an 'EtherCAT device' subject to Beckhoff's licensing
requirements.
   
Does it matter that the HAL driver in question is not itself an
EtherCAT master, but simply a glue layer between HAL and a
third-party
EtherCAT Master?
(An inexact analogy would be a GPL filter to save a document in
Microsoft Word format)
   
I'm no authority at all, of course, just trying to interpret these
matters for myself.  I was becoming involved with packaging EtherCAT
before this topic was raised, so it affects me personally.
   
I'm focusing on the paragraph of Gerd's email following the title
'For
product /device manufacturers'.
   
He writes, 'Making, marketing and sale of a product making use of
the EtherCAT technology requires membership in the ETG and
licensing of the
technology'.  This sounds like LinuxCNC would qualify as such a
product,
and therefore those of us engaged in those activities (most all of
us here in emc-developers) would be bound by those requirements,
were EtherCAT to be included.
   
A bit further down, he writes, 'if a product is a master stack
software,
a vendor of the master stack or the master device does require a
technology license agreement for the master product'.  I don't
understand what 'master device' means or when the term would apply
to LinuxCNC or systems it runs on.  In any case, it does apply to
IgH's EtherCAT Master for Linux implementation, and is a 'further
restriction'
explicitly prohibited by the GPL.
  
   We are going to run around and around and around wasting time on this
   until someone 1) emails both IgH and FSF and ask for a determination
   on a) will LinuxCNC require to have such an agreement, and b) if
   their added requirement is a violation of the GPL; or 2) someone
   hires a copyright lawyer to sort it out.  All us arguing about it is
   a wast of time unless somone here IS actually a lawyer, hired one, or
   emailed the two principal determining parties.
  
  
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Re: [Emc-developers] EtherCAT

[andy pugh]

On 24 October 2013 02:38, Yishin Li y...@araisrobo.com wrote:

 The license stated from IgH EtherCAT Master for Linux :
 All the source code available through IgH is licensed under the GPLv2
 license.
 http://www.etherlab.org/en/ethercat/index.php

The Etherlab EtherCAT Master does appear to be a normal GPL project.

I think that the difficulty is that the _use_ of the EtherCAT standard
is governed by an additional license:
http://ethercatmaster.berlios.de/files/EtherCAT_Master_License_Agreement.pdf

This might actually mean that we are free to ship a HAL driver that
links to the (GPL) Etherlab EtherCAT master, but that any users
linking their system to actual EtherCAT hardware would become liable
to the license above.

Is this any different to the situation of linking, via EtherNET, to a
Windows PC from a Linux PC?

There is an (old) thread on the subject here:
http://lists.etherlab.org/pipermail/etherlab-users/2008/000243.html

IANAL. And the whole licensing thing irritates me.

-- 
atp
If you can't fix it, you don't own it.
http://www.ifixit.com/Manifesto

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Re: [Emc-developers] EtherCAT

[Dave Cole]

And the whole licensing thing irritates me.

I agree..  I find it as appealing as filling out tax forms.

Dave



On 10/24/2013 5:05 AM, andy pugh wrote:
 On 24 October 2013 02:38, Yishin Li y...@araisrobo.com wrote:

 The license stated from IgH EtherCAT Master for Linux :
 All the source code available through IgH is licensed under the GPLv2
 license.
 http://www.etherlab.org/en/ethercat/index.php
 The Etherlab EtherCAT Master does appear to be a normal GPL project.

 I think that the difficulty is that the _use_ of the EtherCAT standard
 is governed by an additional license:
 http://ethercatmaster.berlios.de/files/EtherCAT_Master_License_Agreement.pdf

 This might actually mean that we are free to ship a HAL driver that
 links to the (GPL) Etherlab EtherCAT master, but that any users
 linking their system to actual EtherCAT hardware would become liable
 to the license above.

 Is this any different to the situation of linking, via EtherNET, to a
 Windows PC from a Linux PC?

 There is an (old) thread on the subject here:
 http://lists.etherlab.org/pipermail/etherlab-users/2008/000243.html

 IANAL. And the whole licensing thing irritates me.


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Re: [Emc-developers] EtherCAT

[Jeff Epler]

On Thu, Oct 24, 2013 at 09:38:12AM +0800, Yishin Li wrote:
 The license stated from IgH EtherCAT Master for Linux :
 All the source code available through IgH is licensed under the GPLv2
 license.
 http://www.etherlab.org/en/ethercat/index.php

Read on to the paragraph just below, which reads The license above
concerns the source code only.  Using the EtherCAT technology and brand
is only permitted in compliance with the industrial property and similar
rights of Beckhoff Automation GmbH..

Specifically, Beckhoff Automation GmbH claims that the implementation of
EtherCAT is covered by their patents and that you:
 * must enter into an agreement with them in order to use the software
   (this restriction conflicts with GPLv2 section 0) 
 * may not modify the software so that it is not a compliant EtherCAT
   Master (this restriction conflicts with GPLv2 section 0)
 * may not grant a sublicense for the software (this restriction
   conflicts with GPLv2 section 4)
[my own paraphrase of highlights from
http://ethercatmaster.berlios.de/files/EtherCAT_Master_License_Agreement.pdf]

Any one of these three problems would put the LinuxCNC project in hot
water because of GPLv2 section 7, as I said in my initial message in
this thread.

If your reading is different, then feel free to develop and distribute
HAL drivers which link to an EtherCAT master implementation but do not
ask us to distribute them in source or binary form from LinuxCNC.org,
including by placing them in our git tree.

Jeff

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Re: [Emc-developers] EtherCAT

[John Morris]

I've pasted Gerd Hoppe's reply to my inquiry below

Sadly, Gerd makes it quite clear that one needs a technology license
from Beckhoff to distribute an EtherCAT 'device', including a master
software stack, and that it is required to 'maintain compatibility' and,
as a special restriction in the case of software, that users of the code
be informed of these other restrictions.

I believe that these restrictions mean that neither the LinuxCNC project
nor anyone else may distribute EtherCAT drivers in source code form or
otherwise, since with EtherCAT drivers, the software would essentially
become an 'EtherCAT device' subject to Beckhoff's licensing requirements.

Distributing GPL code with the added requirement that users must be
informed that they are required to obtain a license to redistribute is
clearly a GPL violation and copyright infringement.

John


From: Gerd Hoppe g.hoppe@...
Date: Oct 24, 2013 11:56 AM
Subject: RE: EtherCAT Master licensing clarification


Dear John Morris,



thank you for inquiry in this matter.  Let me try to answer this
question to the extend Beckhoff can contribute to it.  Beckhoff is the
inventor of EtherCAT and has brought the technology to market with great
success worldwide. It finds wide acceptance with users and product
(device) manufacturers around the globe and across all industries.



The licensing model for the technology itself is very simple:



For users of products containing EtherCAT technology

Just for clarification; as with any other licensed technology; the use
of products containing EtherCAT technology e.g. in order to build a
machine from EtherCAT products such as drives, I/O, controls, etc. ,
does not require an extra license to the technology.  Products may come
with other licenses for use from their vendors.



For product /device manufacturers

Making, marketing and sale of a product making use of the EtherCAT
technology requires membership in the ETG and licensing of the
technology which comes at marginal cost for slave device licenses, and
at no cost for master device licenses, provided however the devices or
products maintain compatibility for the communication standard.  This
being said, Beckhoff makes no representation about code of third parties
(such as, but not limited to, ISG) but only about the requirement of
licensing the technology for device or product manufacturers.
Obviously, if a product is a master stack software, a vendor of the
master stack or the master device does require a technology license
agreement for the master product at no cost with Beckhoff.  As such, we
request master stack manufacturers pass this information along to users
of code including a link to Beckhoff as licensor to the technology.



Btw. it is not necessary to license code from Beckhoff under any
software license agreement for someone desiring to make use of the
master technology, or in other words, use of the technology can be made
by means of own code.  We can not make any representation about the
licensing terms of third parties for code or products. However, we will
not give up or dilute our licensing terms to the technology as this is
the warrant to compatibility of todays and future network devices for
EtherCAT, a highly desired feature of a communication technology –
please understand.  We have expressed no other position in this matter
at all times to all ETG members, including but not limited to ISG.  On a
side note: for ease of use, Beckhoff does offer own software products
for users and device manufacturers of EtherCAT.



Any further question about product or code licenses should be addressed
to suppliers of such products.



I hope that this clarifies the matter and we wish an enjoyable
experience with EtherCAT for your projects.



With best regards,





Gerd Hoppe



Corporate Management

c/o   BECKHOFF Automation GmbH

Eiserstrasse 5

33415 Verl

phone: +49 5246-963-130

fax: +49 5246-963-9130

mobile:+49 151 12009511

mail to:g.ho...@beckhoff.com












Beckhoff Automation GmbH | Managing Director: Dipl. Phys. Hans Beckhoff,
Arnold Beckhoff
Registered office: Verl, Germany | Register court: Gütersloh HRB 1803


-Ursprüngliche Nachricht-
Von: John Morris john@...
Gesendet: Dienstag, 22. Oktober 2013 19:43
An: Vertrieb Verl
Cc: sl@...; Sascha Ittner
Betreff: EtherCAT Master licensing clarification

Dear Beckhoff Automation GmbH representative,

Recently, a driver [1] for LinuxCNC, a GPLv2-licensed open-source
machine controller, was written for the IgH EtherCAT Master for Linux.
During discussions about the driver's integration into the LinuxCNC
source, questions about licensing arose.

The IgH EtherCAT implementation webpage [1] states that the code is
licensed under the GPL.  However, it also states that Beckhoff
Automation GmbH may reserve additional rights.

Those familiar with the GPL know that adding further restrictions (as
stated in the license) outside 

Re: [Emc-developers] EtherCAT

[John Morris]

On 10/24/2013 02:06 PM, andy pugh wrote:
 On 24 October 2013 19:55, John Morris j...@zultron.com wrote:
 
 I believe that these restrictions mean that neither the LinuxCNC project
 nor anyone else may distribute EtherCAT drivers in source code form or
 otherwise, since with EtherCAT drivers, the software would essentially
 become an 'EtherCAT device' subject to Beckhoff's licensing requirements.
 
 Does it matter that the HAL driver in question is not itself an
 EtherCAT master, but simply a glue layer between HAL and a third-party
 EtherCAT Master?
 (An inexact analogy would be a GPL filter to save a document in
 Microsoft Word format)

I'm no authority at all, of course, just trying to interpret these
matters for myself.  I was becoming involved with packaging EtherCAT
before this topic was raised, so it affects me personally.

I'm focusing on the paragraph of Gerd's email following the title 'For
product /device manufacturers'.

He writes, 'Making, marketing and sale of a product making use of the
EtherCAT technology requires membership in the ETG and licensing of the
technology'.  This sounds like LinuxCNC would qualify as such a product,
and therefore those of us engaged in those activities (most all of us
here in emc-developers) would be bound by those requirements, were
EtherCAT to be included.

A bit further down, he writes, 'if a product is a master stack software,
a vendor of the master stack or the master device does require a
technology license agreement for the master product'.  I don't
understand what 'master device' means or when the term would apply to
LinuxCNC or systems it runs on.  In any case, it does apply to IgH's
EtherCAT Master for Linux implementation, and is a 'further restriction'
explicitly prohibited by the GPL.

John

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Re: [Emc-developers] EtherCAT

[EBo]

On Oct 24 2013 2:23 PM, John Morris wrote:
 On 10/24/2013 02:06 PM, andy pugh wrote:
 On 24 October 2013 19:55, John Morris j...@zultron.com wrote:

 I believe that these restrictions mean that neither the LinuxCNC 
 project
 nor anyone else may distribute EtherCAT drivers in source code form 
 or
 otherwise, since with EtherCAT drivers, the software would 
 essentially
 become an 'EtherCAT device' subject to Beckhoff's licensing 
 requirements.

 Does it matter that the HAL driver in question is not itself an
 EtherCAT master, but simply a glue layer between HAL and a 
 third-party
 EtherCAT Master?
 (An inexact analogy would be a GPL filter to save a document in
 Microsoft Word format)

 I'm no authority at all, of course, just trying to interpret these
 matters for myself.  I was becoming involved with packaging EtherCAT
 before this topic was raised, so it affects me personally.

 I'm focusing on the paragraph of Gerd's email following the title 
 'For
 product /device manufacturers'.

 He writes, 'Making, marketing and sale of a product making use of the
 EtherCAT technology requires membership in the ETG and licensing of 
 the
 technology'.  This sounds like LinuxCNC would qualify as such a 
 product,
 and therefore those of us engaged in those activities (most all of us
 here in emc-developers) would be bound by those requirements, were
 EtherCAT to be included.

 A bit further down, he writes, 'if a product is a master stack 
 software,
 a vendor of the master stack or the master device does require a
 technology license agreement for the master product'.  I don't
 understand what 'master device' means or when the term would apply to
 LinuxCNC or systems it runs on.  In any case, it does apply to IgH's
 EtherCAT Master for Linux implementation, and is a 'further 
 restriction'
 explicitly prohibited by the GPL.

We are going to run around and around and around wasting time on this 
until someone 1) emails both IgH and FSF and ask for a determination on 
a) will LinuxCNC require to have such an agreement, and b) if their 
added requirement is a violation of the GPL; or 2) someone hires a 
copyright lawyer to sort it out.  All us arguing about it is a wast of 
time unless somone here IS actually a lawyer, hired one, or emailed the 
two principal determining parties.

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