The role and significance of open source in system design is constantly increasing. Organizations are now widely using open source solutions for many key aspects of development, including real time operating systems, compilers, debuggers, and middleware. The key benefits provided by open source include greater control over product roadmaps, lower costs, more features, better support, and avoidance of vendor lock-in. Modeling technologies are becoming increasingly relevant to consumers of open source; indeed, with the incubation of e4, modeling has found a home at the very heart of the Eclipse platform itself. With the commoditization of modeling tools at Eclipse, there is a growing interest in the development of an open source tool suite that supports model-based software engineering (MBSE).
In these slides, we present Papyrus, an open source, Eclipse-based, integrated modeling environment (IME). The goal of Papyrus, a sub-project of the Model Development Tools (MDT) project, is threefold: first, to provide a complete, efficient, robust, methodologically agnostic modeling tool to both industry and academia; second, to provide an open and flexible facility for defining and utilizing domain-specific languages that allow for customizable validation and code generation; and third, to enable the integration of key MBSE elements such as action languages and model-level debuggers. Initially focused on UML and related standards (such as SysML and MARTE), Papyrus includes a backbone that allows integration of multiple editors and promises all the features that one would expect in an IME, such as a model exploration view, standards-compliant editors, customizable property views, and support for collaborative work, advanced profile management, and customization though preferences and extension points. We explore Papyrus from the perspective of, and look to get feedback from, its three communities (developers, vendors, and users) while providing an overview of what functionality currently exists, what we expect to achieve in the first major release (Helios), and where we see the project going in the future.
- The intent of Papyrus is now more ambitious than originally proposed.
- Interoperability here means a strong commitment to OMG specifications, i.e. standards compliance.
- Quality is essential for Atos Origin, Airbus, and other industrials; the tool should be of sufficient quality to support industrial use by distributed teams, with a minimum of defects and given the existing level of documentation.
- The complete vision will not be available in 2010 (more likely post Helios, i.e. 2011).