[dot] KDE and Business: AEI Interview

[Dot Stories]

URL: http://dot.kde.org/1147698188/

From: Wade Olson <olson at kde.org>
Dept: working-together
Date: Monday 15/May/2006, @06:03

KDE and Business: AEI Interview
===============================

   Continuing in a series of interviews with businesses that benefit KDE
and benefit from KDE, we investigate AEI [http://www.aei-tech.com/]
(Analytical Engineering, Inc), a Midwestern engineering firm founded in
1994. In an interview originally conducted by Aaron Seigo
[http://aseigo.blogspot.com/], AEI's design engineer and  author
[http://pragmaticprogrammer.com/titles/ctrubyqt/index.html] Caleb Tennis
discusses AEI's IT needs and KDE's involvement.

     What sort of products or services does AEI offer, and what is your
role at AEI?

     CT: We're a research and development firm.  Right now we are
heavily focused on diesel engine technology, particularly emissions.  We
offer in house durability testing and performance development.  We also
make a number of products which measure various engine characteristics,
such as lubricant oil soot particles.  My role is facilities design
engineer, but I'm also head of the IT department.

     What are AEI's IT requirements?

     CT: We have a number of rooms (called test cells) which house the
engine that is being tested.  The engine is coupled to a large amount of
instrumentation that monitors various parameters, such as temperatures
and pressures.  All of this instrumentation is connected back to a
computer, which maintains the engine running at various conditions. 
Most importantly, it has to be certain that everything is running
correctly.  If any problems happen, it has to get the engine shut off
and notify someone to fix the problem.

     We also need a computer to watch over the facility globally.  To
support each of the cells, we have fans that must provide air for
combustion.  There are pumps to bring fuel into the building.  There is
a process water that must be cycled to provide cooling capacity.  All of
these things must be monitored and maintained.

     Furthermore, it's very important from a cost standpoint to minimize
how hard the facility is running - we only need to provide air, fuel,
and cooling for what the current needs are at any snapshot in time.
Providing extra is wasted electricity.

     How is KDE helping AEI meet its IT needs, and how long has AEI been
using KDE?

     CT: Having a very easy to use GUI for the test cells is very
important to us.  Our test cell computers operate in what I call
"pseudo-kiosk" mode.  That is, most of the desktop features of KDE
aren't used much, but they are available. Instead, all of the operation
is done via a few custom written applications. The widgets that are
available, and the ease of customizing new widgets, is a huge plus.

     A polished look helps a lot too.  Not only does it make life very
simple for the operator, but eye candy is actually quite important from
a business perspective.  Potential clients on plant tours tend to
remember catchy things they've seen, and almost every computer in our
test facility that controls something uses KDE.

     What were the key factors that led you to choose to deploy KDE at
AEI?

     CT: We chose Linux because we felt the need to have something that
would be rock solid, customizeable, and affordable.  We chose KDE
because the API and documentation for it and Qt are unbeatable.  In the
end it really did come down to a Gnome/KDE decision.  Some people still
seem shocked that we didn't choose Gnome, because it's "free".  That may
be so, but from my perspective after having tried both, Qt's design fits
our needs a lot better.  There will always be an argument for which side
is better; after having evaluated both, Qt/KDE worked best for us.

     When it comes down to it, we cannot afford to have a mistake happen
because the program crashed.  Many desktop users are now completely
accustomed to having to reboot every few days.  They're also used to
programs crashing haphazardly.  That may be liveable on your
girlfriend's computer, but for one that's monitoring a $1,000,000
development engine, it becomes pretty important to not have problems
because "Windows crashed".

     From our experience, Linux/KDE uptime and reliability are second to
none.

     How smoothly did the initial deployment of KDE go, and does KDE
integrate with any other systems at AEI?

     CT: Not that bad.  We initially started by using Redhat.  I fell in
love with KDevelop for my development and started getting disgrunted
when trying to compile snapshots of it.  This was also around the time
that the KDE 3.0 series was being released and I wanted to try it out. 
We fell into the "rpm dependency hell" that gets talked about very
frequently.  Later we switched to a Linux From Scratch setup, and now
we're using Gentoo.  While our production systems all run stable
versions, we are constantly trying to keep up with the development
versions so that we can take advantage of what's new. Some people
believe you should upgrade every few years.  I think it's much easier if
you're constantly upgrading, every few months.  You don't get behind the
game this way.

     We started using KDE in one of the units we sell to customers. 
This is as a replacement to software that was running on Windows 95.  So
far the feedback has been good.  Once we're all comfortable with it, we
plan to offer more embedded KDE type products in the future.

     How many and what sort of machines are you using KDE on?

     CT: We have 7 test cells mentioned above.  We also have a database
server, facility monitoring station, emissions measurement server, and a
flow laboratory.  With my development computer this puts us at 12
computers running KDE.  All of our PCs are Dell brand, and they're
mostly all Pentium 4s.  We have a P3 and a couple of Celerons floating
around as well.

     We have 12 test cells, 2 database servers, development servers,
production machines, and various emissions racks.  We probably have 15
computers running KDE and another 15 running just Linux.

     Has AEI realized any special business or technology advantages from
using KDE? (Alternatively: How has KDE been useful/instrumental in
solving problems or addressing special needs that AEI has?)

     CT: The cost savings has been phenomenal.  Our test cell code is
used in house, which means that we didn't need to buy a Qt license.  We
did anyway - because we believe that the value was there.  Our code
probably doesn't have much value to the greater open source community,
anyway.

     Linux and KDE are allowing us to make use of older hardware.  When
someone needs a new desktop computer for their office, we can take their
old desktop, put KDE on it, and give it another 5 years of useful life. 
This means that instead of having to upgrade every computer in the
building every 3 years, we can "hand down" computers and get more life
out of them.  Obviously, this makes management very happy.

     Most obviously, since it's all open source, we can customize
anything we need. We can also get in and see how things work.  We can
get ideas from existing code.

     And it's not all about us.  I've attempted to give back by
contributing to projects that I've used.  I've worked on KDE, both in
bug fixes and documentation.  I helped as the maintainer of KDevelop
through a large portion of the 3.0 release.  Currently I'm helping
maintain KDE within Gentoo.

     I think if more companies realized that this method works, and that
it's substantially less expensive than what they're used to, they would
be begging for more information.  We've been working more and more with
outside companies who are experienced in Qt and KDE development for
building up some of our products.

     What are your favourite and least favourite aspects of KDE?

     CT: My favorite part of KDE is the strength of the community. 
There are people who thoroughly enjoy their work and their contribution.
 They want to make the product better.  If you have a problem, there's
someone who wants to help you.

     My least favorite is the strength of binary compatibility.  This is
also one place where the library shines brightest.  I would personally
like to see binary compatibility broken more often, particularly when it
adds tons of functionality.  But I move a lot faster than the rest of
the world - and I'm sure 95% would disagree with me.  I want the latest
and greatest.  I don't mind recompiling.

     Where would you like to see the future of KDE go, and what would
you like to see in future releases?

     CT: It's in the right direction now.  Continuous improvement -
listen for feedback and make things better.  The people who care about
KDE are doing this anyway.

     Better interoperability with Gnome is important, and I think that's
heading the right direction.  freedesktop.org
[http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/] is a wonderful idea.

     Currently I fail to understand why so many people are scared of
Qt's licensing scheme.  My prediction is that over the next few years, a
lot of companies getting interested in Linux will jump to Gnome to avoid
paying for Qt.  Right now the Gnome folks are dangling this carrot by
saying "We're LGPL.  You can use us for free!".  This will translate to
higher costs in the end as the key Gnome players charge more and more
for their services. It's like buying razors.  The razor costs almost
next to nothing; it's the refills that are really expensive.