Just some food for thought...
I am reading
in which the "upstart" project
This code is used in Ubuntu to "deploy" the computer processes, with an
event-driven approach. Its state machine has a bit more states than what we
use in Orocos, and might be a good source of inspiration for a possible
further development. The major goals they achieve are (i) large and "hot"
(re)configuration flexibility, and (ii) the ability to cope with failing
processes and services. I think this kind of run-time robustness should
also be part of a real component-based software framework. Maybe we could
even share code, since the scope and targeted complexity of this Upstart
project are very much like what orocos is (implicitly) looking for...
A consequence of going this route is that our framework should also have
the counterpart of the HAL and DBUS systems to get the events from and to
the hardware, and between processes. The Orocos OS and hardware
abstractions are already a substantial step in that direction.
Herman
--
K.U.Leuven, Mechanical Eng., Mechatronics & Robotics Research Group