Please make MAVLink Optional... about px4-flow HOT 2 CLOSED

I think there is some big confusion where the origins of MAVLink are and which ecosystem is driving the development of the protocol. Our group at ETH introduced MAVLink in 2009 and is using it as main interface. It really makes no sense for us to not base the flow interface on it.

There must be some huge misconception on your end about the protocol and its origins (I suggest to check out http://github.com/mavlink and http://qgroundcontrol.org/mavlink/start for the official docs) and we will generally not let the research and engineering process being guided by political considerations (other than staying an independent open source project).

Note that we will not accept pull requests suggesting the removal of the protocol and that the codebase is currently undergoing major improvements (100% performance increase since last week) - so anyone trying to maintain a fork will miss out on substantial improvements regularly.

Closing this.

from px4-flow.

I think you over read between the seemingly implied lines. If you read the forums plenty of folks want to interface with simple microControllers. Not everyone wants to use MAVlink.

My request is more alone the lines if can you add an option to communicate over the UART sans MAVlink.

If anything it would require some IFDEFs... I had to remove the functionality as I'm not able to follow along in the very lagged ArduCopter development on this sensor.

The main intent is to enable folks that don't want to be tied to MAVlink when is it flat out is not necessary to speak to this sensor package.

Your political pontificating is off base unfortunately. I didn't send you a pull request because It isn't appropriate. The link was more of an example to show it is not required.

I'm happily reading from both the sonar and gyro. The flow camera seems to be non functioning for what ever reason.

Given there is no test libraries to easily verify all sensors are spitting out sane data, I am unable to verify it works at all for the time being.

from px4-flow.