RE: [vhdl-200x] Question on provision of UML tool with P1076c

Daniel,

The MagicDraw Reader is available free of charge from the vendor's website
(www.magicdraw.com). The Reader (as its name implies) just opens the UML
model read-only, but it allows you to navigate and search quite nicely. The
vendor also provides a free Community edition that lets you edit the class
diagrams. Beyond that, you can pay for verious personal and enterprise
editions with more functionality for other UML diagrams. However, given that
we only include class diagrams in the VHPI information model, the Community
edition is probably sufficient for 99% of what people would want to do.

The information model is provided in the standard in XMI format. XMI is a
standard XML representation of the model's structure, and should be readable
with other UML tools. The problem is that XMI does not specify
representation of the graphical layout of the class diagrams. That's handled
as a vendor-specific extension, and so is not likely to be readable by other
tools. When we developed the information model, there was no standard for
the graphical representation. So having a freely available reader, together
with facility to generate a web-browsable representation of the graphics,
was a stong motivation behind choosing MagicDraw.

I think your suggestion to archive the current distributions of the tools as
an insurance policy makes good sense. We might suggest to the IEEE that they
do so, even if they don't currently make the distributions available for
download. I'll see if they are interested in doing that.

Cheers,

PA

--
Dr. Peter J. Ashenden         peter@ashenden.com.au
Ashenden Designs Pty. Ltd.    www.ashenden.com.au
PO Box 640                    VoIP: sip://0871270078@sip.internode.on.net
Stirling, SA 5152             Phone: +61 8 7127 0078
Australia                     Mobile: +61 414 70 9106


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Daniel Leu [mailto:daniel_leu@inicore.com] 
> Sent: Wednesday, 9 May 2007 8:54 AM
> To: Peter Ashenden
> Subject: Re: [vhdl-200x] Question on provision of UML tool with P1076c
> 
> 
> Hello Peter,
> 
> >
> > Second, they have concerns about distributing a commercial product.
> > The
> > issue is not one of permission, which has been given by the tool  
> > supplier.
> > Rather, they are concerned about being perceived as endorsing a  
> > particular
> > product. Our rationale for including the tool with the standard is  
> > that
> > doing so mitigates the risk of future versions not being 
> compatible  
> > with the
> > form in which we publish the information model, and the 
> risk of the  
> > tool
> > supplier withdrawing the tool or going bust. None of these 
> is likely.
> > However, as a wise man once said, confidence is that glowing  
> > feeling you get
> > just before falling flat on your face!
> 
> I don't think that this is an issue as long as the 'reader' is  
> available free of charge. Is the data format compatible with other  
> tools? Ideally would be to have the data files available in an open  
> format that is supported by several tools. I have no idea if such a  
> thing exist for UML tools.
> 
> >
> > The alternative proposed by the IEEE editor is to include a link to
> > the tool
> > supplier's website, so that people can download the tool for  
> > themselves. The
> > link would would be accompanied by a statement that IEEE does not  
> > endorse
> > this tool and that users are free to use equivalent tools. Would  
> > that be
> > satisfactory?
> 
> This sounds reasonable to me. Maybe one could archive the tools to  
> prevent an issue if the original downloads were no longer available.  
> Then Accellera or eda.org might jump in to host them.
> 
> 
> Regards,
> Daniel
> 



-- 
This message has been scanned for viruses and
dangerous content by MailScanner, and is
believed to be clean.