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NASA Frees Their Robotics Software
kremvax writes "It's a field day for robotics hackers everywhere, as NASA releases the first installment of their CLARAty reusable robotic software framework to the public. According to the JPL press release, these modules contain everything from math infrastructure to device drivers for common motors and cameras, and computer vision, image, and 3D processing."
No seriously, NASA is an acronym not a proper name. National Aviation and Space Administration.
Kindly get it right. Oh yeah, this is slashdot...
The BBC does it as well, which is odd since they should use "Bbc" to be consistent.
But I'm from the Usa, so what do I know...
Err, nowhere in the summary does it mention the JPL as a license, it mentions the JPL as an entity which just so happens to be the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
However if you did RTFA you'd notice that the license shouldn't be considered "Open Source."
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
Urge to tinker....rising....
It is free, runs on linux and mac, supports a wide variety of hardware, has libraries for 3d image recognition, was tested in autonomous robots on mars...
I work developing a similar system. I hope my boss does not come across slashdot, because my job would be seriously endangered.
(or perhaps i should only have a peek or two in the code)
Q: What's purple and works from home? A: A non-Abelian group. (It doesn't commute.)
tm
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As a result, this software isn't "free as in freedom".
FTA:"CLARAty development was primarily funded by the Mars Technology Program and it serves as the integration environment for the program's rover technology developments."
Don't tell me to get a life. I'm a gamer; I have LOTS of lives!
Seriously. Jonny5 will be sending his manifesto to the New York Times pretty soon.
"Common sense will be the death of us all"
If you read the license, you'll notice that you are not allowed to use the code for commercial purposes without paying a royalty and getting a different license (this one doesn't allow commercial use). Because of this, it does not qualify as Open Source (OSI definition) or Free (FSF definition) unless you're using another definition for one of these common licensing terms. For once we don't need to debate the merits of one or the other, because this license is neither.
No.
No seriously, NASA is an acronym not a proper name. National Aviation and Space Administration.
... AIDS, SARS, NASDAQ, SETI, NAFTA and NATO spring to mind as likely candidates, I've seen them written out as Aids, Sars, Nasdaq, Seti, Nafta, and Nato, respectively.
Kindly get it right. Oh yeah, this is slashdot...
Nobody enunciates 'en ay ess ay' its just 'nasa'. Its may be an acronym, but its become a word in its own right too, like radar, sonar, laser, scuba, snafu, dos, bios, ram, flak, gestapo, etc...
Or perhaps if you want an examples of 'proper names'? How about:
Fiat - Fabbrica Italianna Automobili Torino
Gulag - Glavnoye Upravleniye Ispravitelno-trudovykh LAGerey
Gestapo - GEheime STAatsPolizei
Its really only a matter of time before some of the others become 'words'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source
"The term is most commonly applied to the source code of software that is made available to the general public with relaxed or non-existent intellectual property restrictions."
This has relaxed IP restriction. It can be used by any one for non commercial use.
OS and FS are often combined on slashdot, mostly because linux is both.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
It's the British way of doing acronyms that are said as a word rather than spelled out.
What's this? Another weblog? On transit?
But there does exist another large robotics library that is completely free called Player. The project even has two complete simulators, Stage (for 2D simulation of many robots) and Gazebo (for 3D simulation of a smaller number of robots). Great project for any aspiring roboticists out there.
'Every story, if continued long enough, ends in death.' --Ernest Hemingway
The metric to Imperial conversions routines?
I haven't read the article yet either, but I also have to agree that everyone claiming to have open this or that is getting old really really REALLY FAST.
:-)
If I can't openly distribute it then what's the point? If they have patents covering the stuff then spending hours, days, weeks, months, etc combing through 100K lines of code to glean ideas is pointless, because a) I can't use them and/or b) any improvements I make are still locked down by the original patents.
OK, now to rad the article
Hmm, interesting. Slashdot seems to have clipped my article attribution out. This was originally blogged at http://mrfuture.com/ And my quote was lifted directly from there.
Anyone know of a way to fix that after the fact, or does Slashdot dislike via mentions?
--- Little Atomo - The Amazing Thinking Robot from Atomocom! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIP9KisHi4k
Me: "My friends and I wanted to make a Moon landing video, what effects do we need to fake it?"
NASA: "Here, have ours. Even comes with a moon rock generator."
Me: "Sweet! I can make a 200 pound rock fall on one of the astronauts?"
NASA: "Yeah, but sometimes it makes a 200 kilogram rock instead. We still haven't ironed that stuff out."
Anything that comes from a government lab should be in the public domain unless it was developed for military purposes. If our tax dollars were spent to build it, it is ours. Patent protection costs so much that the expenditures often counterbalance the licensing revenue.
My master thesis finished this month is about component systems for mobile robotics and other domains, it's a called Experimental Robotics Framework (ERF), and is freely available at http://miarn.sf.net/. ERF makes it easy to setup experiments in robotics domains and even other domains by legoing (putting together) simple components to achieve lots of different experiments. It uses robotics sensors (+30) from Player/Stage/Gazebo and displays the experiments in 3d using opengl + fltk. Also it makes it trivial to interface with components via GUI (clicking in the world) or via text or speech ("robot go to"). The choice of foundation libraries makes it portable to any platform and the license is LGPL. Check-out the quality of the videos of ERF and those of Clarity... pretty much side by side no ?
As for the Clarity, it seems immature, i didn't even get it to install without modifying the provided configuration. Also it has that feeling of proprietary all over it. Just navigating the site is annoying with all those password pop-ups appearing. In ERF installation is with standard GNU autotools and rpms of more component kits are made available... total install commands needed: rpm.