Linux-kernel mailing list archive 2000-32,: An *urgent* call for some friendly GPL pursuasion [long]

# An *urgent* call for some friendly GPL pursuasion [long]

Gary Lawrence Murphy (garym@canada.com)
09 Aug 2000 22:29:33 -0400

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On the subject of pursuading UVic to release the Rigi
reverse-engineering kit as a GPL, I received the following email from
Johannes --- He is asking a more urgent favour which would have the
GPL of Rigi as a side effect: There is a new set of parser tools which
have been developed at Bell Canada and are in danger of being shelved
and forgotten unless the current owners can build a GPL case for their
management before they leave ... ie by _August_ _11th_! (this Friday).

Perhaps if members of this list were to forward some fast friendly
words of support and encouragement we can help them make their case ;)

I am including the linux-kernel list as there may be people there who
support the open-source release of quality reverse engineering tools,
but who may not be following our linux-doc discussions.

-----------
Date: Wed, 09 Aug 2000 20:39:47 +0000 (GMT)
From: Johannes Martin <jmartin@csr.csc.uvic.ca>
Subject: Re: Objecannonabilization (O19n) of C sources

On 8 Aug 2000, Gary Lawrence Murphy wrote:
> Would you like me to forward the emails that say "I'd use, and help
> fix, this thing if it was GPL?" --- we had a discussion about this on
> the kernel-doc list.
Yes, this might be helpful.

> If you give me his email address, I can casually mention his role
> on the kernel-doc list; hopefully they will be polite and won't roast him.
Let's try something else first:

Some people at Bell Canada have been writing C/C++ and Java parsers
(called DATRIX) that are almost ready to be used with Rigi and other
similar tools. However these guys just got a new job somewhere else, and
so the code may disappear in some filing cabinets at Bell, unless they can
convince their management to release the source code as open source. They
were asking for people to email them in support of the open source idea.

I'm including Bruno Lague's (the project lead) email with the announce of
the changes, and also his reply to my email in support of the open source
idea for your reference. It would be great if you could get some people to
send him a supporting email, pointing out how great a tool DATRIX is and
how much more people would be able to benefit from it if it was open
source, preferably BY AUGUST 11 (that's his last day at Bell Canada).

Bell Canada, as IBM, UVic, and many others, are members of the CSER
(Canadian Consortium for Software Engineering Research). If they set an
example, it might be an incentive for UVic/IBM to follow suit. Since
Bell Canada's CSER contact (Francois Coallier) seems to be in favour of
the open source idea, there's a good chance, that we will succeed.

Johannes

-----------
Date: Wed, 2 Aug 2000 18:29:06 -0400
From: "LAGUE, BRUNO" <bruno.lague@bell.ca>
Subject: Datrix

Dear CSER members and international R&D users of Datrix,

We are pleased to provide you all with a license for all datrix tools
on all platforms that will expire in one year, on July 31, 2001.
You can also download the last version (3.6.11) of Datrix tools from
our web site which was just released on July 27.

We also wish to inform you all that we, Sebastien Lapierre, Charles
Leduc and myself, all received an offer from a new company recently,
and that the three of us accepted it. We will be leaving Bell Canada
on August 11, and thus we will not have a chance to meet with all of
you again before our departure.

Our involvement in the software engineering R&D community and in
the CSER in particular has been a very interesting, exciting and
enriching experience. It has been a real pleasure to work with you
all, and to twist the evolution of Datrix (which initially was a
basic C/C++ metric tool when we joined Bell), into a solid multi-purpose
and multi-language AST/ASG generator with the potential of suiting the
needs of various research projects in the CSER and world wide.

The future of Datrix is open to many options, one of them being to
make it an open source project. All options are still open. If
the open source one is of interest to you and your research lab,
please let me know before August 11, as the level of interest
expressed by the researchers community will influence the decision.
(If you are a student, don't be shy in voicing your opinion as well!)

We all strongly wish that Datrix will continue to serve your needs,
and whatever option is retained for the future of Datrix, we intend
to spend some of our non-business hours to back whoever will
take the lead on the evolution of this software from now on.

Please watch the Datrix web site to see further news, at either:
http://www.iro.umontreal.ca/labs/gelo/datrix/
or
http://www.casi.polymtl.ca/casibell/datrix/

Thanks again to everyone who gave us feedback and thus helped us in
tuning this set of tool.

Wish you all the best,
Bruno Lague
Sebastien Lapierre
Charles Leduc

-------------
Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2000 15:06:05 -0400
From: "LAGUE, BRUNO" <bruno.lague@bell.ca>
To: Johannes Martin <jmartin@csr.csc.uvic.ca>
Subject: RE: Datrix

Hi Johannes,

Thanks for your wish. And thanks for your support for the open source
option. We need that kind of notes in order to build a good case
for Bell's executive to make that decision. If the research
community strongly voice its desire to access datrix and stresses
the benefits for them, it will definitely help Francois to get
our VP's approval.

We were just beginning to have a closer interaction with you,
and to me, it was very promising. This is one of the things that
makes it difficult to leave the datrix project for us. If the
project becomes open source, we will have a chance to interact
again. In any case, I would be very glad to see our paths cross
again in the future...

ciao,
Bruno

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Johannes Martin [mailto:jmartin@csr.csc.uvic.ca]
> Sent: Thursday, August 03, 2000 9:58 PM
> To: LAGUE, BRUNO
> Subject: Re: Datrix
>
>
> Hi Bruno,
>
> I'm glad (for you) and sorry (for us) to hear these news. I wish you,
> Sebastien and Charles all the best for your new job!
>
> Concerning the future of Datrix, I would greatly appreciate if we could
> continue to use it for our research - I think making it into an open
> source project will be a good choice. Especially now that we are finally
> about to agree on a standard exchange format, Datrix will be of high value
> to the research community.
>
> Cheers
> Johannes

-------------------
Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2000 15:42:41 -0400
From: "LAGUE, BRUNO" <bruno.lague@bell.ca>
To: Johannes Martin <jmartin@csr.csc.uvic.ca>
Subject: RE: Datrix & GXL

Johannes,

Recently, Sebastien added an option to Datrix parsers to dump
the AST/G in a ".dot" format, which is needed by graphviz.
This output format completes the .ta and the .vcg formats
we already supported. GXL is so close to TA, it should be doable
in a snap (took about 2 days to sebastien to add a .dot format),
a snap of time we don't have before leaving though. However,
if Datrix is released in the public domain as we hope it will,
that's may be the first community contribution... If one looks
at how the dumping of the AST is done for vcg/ta/dot, it should
be relatively simple for someone to figure how to add what it
takes to produce GXL.

ciao,
Bruno

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Johannes Martin [mailto:jmartin@csr.csc.uvic.ca]
> Sent: Wednesday, July 12, 2000 1:30 AM
> To: LAGUE, BRUNO
> Subject: Datrix & GXL
>
>
> Hi Bruno,
>
> a summer coop student of Hausi (Jeff Michaud) is working on a GXL<->RSF
> converter, and he might also look into a XMI<->RSF or GXL<->XMI converter
> lateron.
>
> Have you done any work on Datrix to make it support GXL? It would be nice
> if we could use it for Rigi that way.
>
> Cheers
> Johannes

    --
    Gary Lawrence Murphy <garym@linux.ca>: office voice/fax: 01 519 4222723
    T(!c)Inc Business Innovation through Open Source http://www.teledyn.com
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    "You don't play what you know; you play what you hear." --- Miles Davis

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