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EPICS

EPICS Base 3.13 and 3.14Status and LicenseIHEP August 2002

Marty Kraimer and Andrew Johnson

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EPICS EPICS Base 3.13

Latest release is 3.13.7 Only available via the new EPICS base License Some bug fixes A few minor enhancements

Future 3.13 releases Only bug fixes and minor enhancements

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EPICS EPICS Base 3.14

Release 3.14.0beta2 is the latest release Only available via the new EPICS base License Many bug fixes since beta1 Some enhancements Should be much more stable than beta1

Future 3.14 releases Major emphasis is stability Only minor enhancements Major changes will go into 3.15 3.14 releases should be more frequent. Should be ready soon to release 3.14.1

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EPICS Base 3.14 Overview

Main Goal for 3.14 – Port iocCore vxWorks – 5.4 (Tornado 2) required RTEMS – Open Source Real Time Operating System Solaris – Solaris 6 and Solaris 8 tested Linux – Redhat 6.1, 6.2, 7.0, 7.1, 7.2 tested Win32 – NT tested Darwin – Open Source for Mac OSX HPUX - Soon Marty Kraimer, Jeff Hill, Janet Anderson, Eric Norum, and Ralph

Lange primary developers. Hardware Support

vxWorks support unbundled Some for RTEMS Requires major changes for Unix, Linux, win32

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EPICS Base 3.14 Overview

Support for other platforms HPUX SOON!!!

Versions before 11 do not properly support pthreads Support will require version 11 BESSY (Ralph Lange) is working on the port. Ready soon

(R3.14.1). Main Porting Problem is multithreading

Good support for pthreads OR Threads support for implementing epicsThread, epicsMutex,

and epicsEvent Multithreading now required

iocCore is intrinsically multithreaded CA is also multithreaded but transparent to existing

applications.

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EPICS Epics Base Release 3.14 Status

Supporting many platforms is a challenge Each platform has many versions Many versions of G++ C++ is particular challenge

Most implementations still don’t fully support standard especially C++ library. Implementations still immature but getting better.

Status Second beta release is now available. Ready for test stands,

commissioning, etc. Operational systems should still wait. I have tested vxWorks Test stand with many VME I/O modules Encourage users to try Win32, Solaris, Linux, RTEMS, Darwin. Killer Applications: Sequencer and LAN Gpib

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EPICS Epics Base Release 3.14 Status

Sequencer Eric Norum & Marty Kraimer started with latest SLAC

version Has been tested on all supported beta1 platforms SLAC has taken back responsibility (Michael Laznovsky)

GPIB: HP2050 LAN Gpib Eric Norum & Marty Kraimer started with latest BESSY

release. Has been tested on all but winNT and Darwin. NI1014, bitbus and bitbus gpib supported only on

vxWorks BESSY is again responsible for GPIB (Benjamin Franksen).

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EPICS Epics Base Release 3.14 Status

Additional Features for 3.14 Large Arrays – available in beta1

St.cmd command: rsrvConfig(bufsize,maxbufs) Transparent to existing clients but must be relinked Purpose is ease of use not performance In next release PCAS will also support large arrays.

Multipriority CA servers – available in beta1 Client must request, i.e. not transparent to existing clients. Provides incremential improvement for performance

degradatation. Purpose is to allow inter IOC communication to have higher priority than other clients.

No other new features for 3.14 Testing -One test still fails. It is a very tough test.

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EPICS License Overview

Old License Agreement Replacing the Old License New EPICS Base License Current Status of Base EPICS Open License Other Licenses Copyleft Licenses

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EPICS Old License Agreement

EPICS was provided for “research, development, evaluation and demonstration purposes only”

No royalties were charged because of “the collaborative nature” of the agreement

EPICS was “loaned” to other collaborators, and must be returned or destroyed on termination of the agreement.

All enhancements must be made available to LANL for royalty-free distribution to other EPICS users

Licensees are not allowed to distribute EPICS to other sites without further written permission

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EPICS Replacing the Old License

Commercial licenses for EPICS ran out in 1998/99 Several false starts have occurred since then to try to

make EPICS available under an Open Source license The last attempt revealed that EPICS has been given an

Export Control Classification Number EAR99 Until/unless that is removed, EPICS Base cannot be

released using a true Open Source license Export regulations require ANL to ensure that no recipients are

on the US government’s lists of Denied Persons or Entities Any license used must be acceptable to DoE Getting the EAR99 classification removed could take

some time, and there is no guarantee it will be allowed

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EPICS EPICS Base License

ANL Legal department developed a new license for EPICS Base that meets both DoE and EAR99 needs: Permits copying and modification with an organization Allows distribution of modified copies outside of the

licensee’s organization, but only to other (verified) licensees

Verification involves checking the web-published list of licensees, contacting APS only if the destination site is not publicly listed

Lists the US Government’s rights to use the software Contains warranty disclaimer and liability limitation

clauses

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EPICS Current Status

To change the EPICS Base license, ANL obtained permission to redistribute all code that was written elsewhere

A signed ‘Grant of License’ has been received from all sites that contributed code to EPICS Base

R3.13.7 and R3.14.0beta2 have both been released using the new license.

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EPICS EPICS Open License

The EPICS Open License was derived from the Base License, with the EAR99 restrictions removed: Permits modifications and redistribution of the software Requires the copyright notice and license agreement be retained Requires any modifications made to be marked as such Contains disclaimers that make it acceptable to DoE

APS unbundled support modules and extensions will use the new EPICS open license. Outside collaborators will have to provide a signed ‘Grant of License’. A license may also include additional copyright notices.

We can only do this for code written at Argonne Other sites: talk to your management about licensing

your locally-produced code, preferably as Open Source

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EPICS Other Possible Licenses

There are many Open Source licenses availablehttp://www.opensource.org/licenses/

Don’t write your own license if you can avoid it Your code can only be combined with someone else’s if

the two licenses are legally compatible — GPL+NPL=Illegal

The legal compatibility of existing Open Source licenses is reasonably well known, but new licenses complicate matters

DOE may not accept some Open Source licenses Choose your license carefully (if you have any

influence)

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EPICS Copyleft Licenses

The GNU LGPL is the best license for advocates of the principles of Free Software who work with EPICS

The GNU GPL is incompatible with the Base License An executable or library file containing both GPL code and

the Channel Access library cannot be distributed to anyone, and it may be illegal to create such an executable in the first place

If you insist on using the GPL, include a statement explicitly permitting your code to be linked with EPICS Base

You probably can’t include or link to any other GPL code if you add that exception, unless it already has the same exception