[Paparazzi-devel] Thoughts about the GCS

[Marko Thaler]

Hello everybody!

I have been observing the communication on the development board with regards to the future Paparazzi GCS development and the OCaml programming language.

I have my deepest respect for the work Pascal has done on the GCS and Paparazzi in general. Now that we have lost him I gradually start to comprehend the enormous hole he has left behind and the implications of using a programming language for the GCS that is not widely adopted.

As I understand the basic problem for future Paparazzi GCS development is the lack of OCaml programming skills that are present in the community. At the same time in the worldwide open source UAV communities there is a stronger and stronger desire for defining open standards for UAV <-> GCS communication and provide an open GCS development platform.  Is there a common solution to both problems?

I do not know! However, while surfing the internet I came across the QGroundControl from the PixHawk team that tries to provide open standards and a general UAV GCS (everything written in GPL-ed C++ Qt framework). I understand there would be quite a lot of work to transition the Paparazzi system to another GCS (reintegrate communication protocol, rewrite the generation of control parameters from the airframe file, etc.). But maybe in the long run the Paparazzi community and open source UAV communities in general could benefit from using a common GCS development platform.

I would love to hear your thoughts and opinions about the future Paparazzi GCS development options.

Thank you and kind regards,

Marko