OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE
filled with researchers working on new developments and the latest technologies, all of which you have access to as soon as they are released,’ said Hellmann Santos. In addition to gaining access to
developments made by researchers, users of open source software can also profit from developments made by other companies. ‘From my experience, there are a lot of companies that try to develop everything on their own,’ he added. ‘Tey write all of their vision stacks on
able to describe them to the open source community. ‘If they are issues that are also being
faced by other members of the community, then they are typically solved very quickly,’ Hellmann Santos continued. ‘If it’s a problem specific to you and your company, then issues may take longer to resolve. In these circumstances there are companies out there who do offer support to open source users, but this support is a paid-for service.’
Sharing innovations As well as the flexibility that can be gained through adopting open source software, another big advantage is that any updates to it can be accessed instantly. ‘Te community you are part of is often
their own and do not profit from pre- existing developments, as they think everything needs to belong to them. Tis is where you can profit from open source. You can use things that other people have already developed to boost your development, while sharing your own knowledge by contributing back.’ Tis concept might be a shock to the
industrial world, as it is a completely different approach compared to how companies have operated in the past: the entity that makes a development is the one that owns it and the only one that can sell it. It is therefore important to keep in mind that, when choosing open source, a company must decide which parts of its source code can be exposed to the open source community, and which parts will be
kept as intellectual property. Another important factor that could influence if open source is adopted by the vision industry, said Hellmann Santos, is legality: ‘We’ve seen that numerous companies are not fully aware of how open source licenses work, as their legal teams have never come into contact with them. Tis is changing, however, as more and more companies use open source.’ With software quality often being
criticised, the transparency of open source software will also play an important role in its adoption. ‘If you have an open source package, you can see how it’s written and the kinds of tests that have been performed on it, which reveals the good and bad parts,’ Hellmann Santos said. ‘With closed proprietary software packages, you don’t see that and need to rely on the manufacturer’s word.’ Whether or not open source software
can be regarded as ‘ready’ for industrial machine vision applications – compared to established proprietary software – will come down to the application. ‘What you always have to do as a software developer or integrator is test your solution. If you write your software well using open source, then test it well, it can easily be as reliable as proprietary software,’ he said. O
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