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

# Re: An *urgent* call for some friendly GPL pursuasion

Daniel Phillips (phillips@innominate.de)
Thu, 10 Aug 2000 11:19:28 +0200

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On Thu, 10 Aug 2000, Gary Lawrence Murphy wrote:

> 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.

To help people decide more quickly if this is something they want to support,
I'm summarizing some information here:

http://www.iro.umontreal.ca/labs/gelo/datrix/

"What is Datrix ?"

"The Datrix team, a part of Bell Canada's Quality Engineering and Research
group, performs software source code assessments with the goal of evaluating
the maintainability and the evolability of software products. In order to
perform better assessments, we have developed through the years a number of
source code analysis tools which aid us in our daily work. More information
about our group can be obtained from this brochure. "

Bruno Lague is the Datrix project lead. Here's his email:

<bruno.lague@bell.ca>

If you're in the mood, why not send him a nice email expressing your
observerations about:

- why open source is good
- how it generates great PR for companies that release it (the BIGGER the
company, the more and better the PR),
- how Bell Canada's name would stay in the
credits file forever,
- oh, and by the way, IBM does this all the time,
- how lots of the people who would benefit from this are Canadian,
- how the software would be really useful to the project your're working on,
especially if you could add the features you need
- how you're a programmer and you would not only *use* this code, but make
it *better*
- how it would reinforce your impression that Canada is a free and
open country
- etc. etc. etc.

Bearing in mind that he's on your side and he has to convince somebody about
him to 'do the right thing'. My feeling is, if he gets even a handful of
well-written emails it will do the trick.

Here's a pointer to Rigi, the software we were first talking about:

http://www.rigi.csc.uvic.ca/Pages/description.html

Rigi looks like a *very cool* tool for reverse engineering the detailed
structure of a large, undocumented software project. Does anyone know of a
large software project that could benefit from that? ;-)

Rigi is *not open source* but it could be, if we say the right magic words to
the right people.

    --
    Daniel

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