LibIndSys

• A centre for development, deployment, and limited operation of control and management systems based on libre¹ software for small companies and organizations.

Name

• LibIndSys or LInSys: Libre Industrial Systems

• CeDeTe: Centre for Democratic Technology (Latin: 2nd person plural imperative, "transfer something to someone")

• InCeDeTe: Industrial CeDeTe (Latin: 2nd person plural imperative, "move forward")

Purpose

• Development of industrial cyber-physical or business systems based on libre and free third party software
• Operating and further developing such operative systems
• Helping local companies in achieving the skill and experience to operate and further develop such systems
• Restricted to SMEs
• Restricted to engaging Norwegian-owned and -based companies
• Ensure that development capability follows operational responsability

Topics

• Electro-mechanical automation
• Cyber-physical systems
• Business software integration
• Operation control systems
• Distributed, autonomous, pervasive control systems

Approach

Make it risky but cheap and sustainable: Take advantage of new software and hardware. The riskiness is in the loose contractual binding between the industrial partner and the team of developers in the centre, including the problem with guaranteeing success of development and instantaneous support for commissioned systems. The cheapness comes from the interest based work effort of the developers, the no-cost of modern, advanced software libraries, and the low cost of modern, advanced, consumer-grade hardware; mechanics, robots, electronics, computers, etc. Sustainability comes from the openness, or rather "libre-ness", of the underlying software, which allows for continued development in extend of contract lifetime, as well as the lifetime of the centre itself.

A modern and reliable paradigm for the centre to succeed would be DevOps: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DevOps. This may ensure that the personnel operations are also involved with development of the system and routines, and vice versa.

Association Model

Elements of association between members and the centre:

• Development
• Deployment/Commisioning
• Maintenance
• Support
• Operation

The centre should be centred around development of systems, mostly systems that integrates with third-part. These systems may be taken into operation, be maintained, and support for further development given. Typically development should lead quickly to an operational prototype or pilot system, for which support and development will evolve it into an integral system at the industrial partner site.

Gradually, responsability for the system will be offloaded to the industrial partner. Especially the responsability for operation and maintenance should be entirely offloaded during a limited period of time. Whether responsability for support and further development may be offloaded entirely, or to what degree and over how long a period it may be offloaded, depends highly on the commitment of and develpment of skills at the industrial partner in relation to the complexity of the system.

All engagements must take its offspring from some development and some code base manifested in the centre. The centre should not purely deliver or operate third-part systems.

A central and traditional problem that will be attempted avoided is that of disengaging the developers, whom would naturally undertake support and maintenance responsability, from operational aspects. Hence, the industrial partners must invest capital and time in keeping the centre engaged with some amount of operational responsability, until it can be fully determined that support and maintenance by the centre is safe without operational engagement, or until the industrial partner have gained a sufficient level of skill with the system and its technologies to carry out support and maintenance on their own.

Organization Structure

The centre should be a cooperative with organizational structure as a centre. Hence there are no, or only few, permanently associated staff. However, the centre leader should at all times be someone with permanent association.

Personnel resources should be recruited on a temporary basis for part-time work. Resources should be recruited from industrial partners as part of their commitment, from third part companies such as systems integrators and systems suppliers as part of their long term investment, and from research and development institutions to bring the new and flexible technologies into operative systems.

Ownership

The ownership model should be flexible and dynamic. Permanent ownership will be held by research and development institutions. Industrial partners will hold membership as long as they have contractual ties with the centre. Third part industrial partners will be granted ownership in cases where they commit themselves to participate in the development of the code base and systems from the centre.

Financial Structure

The openness of the organization, the restriction to Norwegian-owned and -based companies, and the commitment to only develop libre code systems could enable the centre to acquire a substantial support from the Norwegian government; e.g. the Research Council of Norway. One way of supporting could be 30% to 50% funding on the hours spent in development and support by associated resources at the centre. Another, non-exclusive, way of funding from RCN could be a basic funding to keep an infrastructure and administration of the centre operational at zero activity.

Industrial partner-members could pay an basic, annual membership fee as well as per hour or per project for utilization of the resources of the centre.

Unfair Competition and Restrictions

In case of governmental financial support, the problem of unfair competition in the market of system integrators and suppliers must be addressed. The centre must enter the market under specific restrictions, in the uncovered area between research and development institutions and commercial actors. Examples of such restrictions may be:

• Limits on number of employees, turnover, and profit of industrial partners
• Only engaging Norwegian-owned and -based industrial partners
• Only developing software licensed under GPL (GNU Public License) or compatible. (Naturally, integration with existing closed and proprietary, third party software and systems at the site of industrial partners must be acceptable.)
• Copyright of subsidized software will be granted to the centre. The centre may undertake work to develop specific software and systems, for individual business, but the work for such tasks shall not be subsidized. Such software shall also be released under GPL-compatible licence, but the copyright will be granted to the industrial partner, and non-disclosure to third parties shall be guaranteed by the centre.

Example Small Local Companies

• Nyttige Never AS

• Trondheims Kjøkkenhage AS

• Quality Care AS

• Trondheim Bilkollektiv BA

• Livid Jeans

• Camphill Rotvoll

• Rotvoll Bakeri

• Rotvoll Safteri

• Voll Gård

• Trondheim Kooperativ

• Etikken

• Norganic

• Persilleriet

Example Development Companies

• Mektron AS

• Skala Maskon AS

• Itema AS

Notes