[Project Idea] - FRC Driver Station in Java

[josh.pruim]

After working on a FIRST FMS system that is written in pure Java, I got an idea of trying to implement the Driver Station in Java as well, because I have a hunch that the reason we aren't seeing OS X and Linux dashboards is due to the fact they don't want to rewrite the DS.

Would it be violating the rules to implement such a project? (I'm not trying to actually use this during competitions [Unless FIRST actually starts using a new DS based on it, Probably unlikely] but more for testing. I know a few teams that do their development on OS X or Linux and have to use a separate computer to control it.)

I'm totally willing to dedicate a little time during the coming week (Still in planning of robot, No code to write yet.) to developing a Java port of the DS.

Hopes for now:
A Java port of the DS that can control the robot with the same protocol as the current DS.

Hopes for later:
Plugin architecture (Have DS-side scripting for controllers, whatever you can write a plugin for)
Encryption to any OpenFMS-based servers (So nobody could modify the control packets, i.e. dropping/forging packets when a ref disables you FMS-side)

[Thad House]

R64 and R91 prevent using any DS other the one they provide for competition use. For practice you could use a custom one, but for competition you have to use the official one.

Otherwise i have seen DS's written in java. I also saw a team last year get the official DS running on Wine. I dont know where the links are, but they are here somewhere.