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Re: [modeling-pmc] Wish to take over MXF, Re: MXF Creation Review results

Hi

I'm looking forward to a presentation of XOCL, as part of the joint Eclipse/OMG symposium just before EclipseCon, as a chance to try to understand what XOCL is really about. I've seen the "Montages AG - Business Modelling Practice and Innovations" slides on which there is a nice two dimensional editor for model instances, but beyond that it was not clear to me what was new in comparison to what has happened in parallel. Discussions on OCL Analysis have provided some strong motivation for promoting the OCL Impact Analyzer from examples in the Juno release, so that an independent development can be replaced by a 'standard' one.

'Model Transformation Framework' is a wonderful term that can mean whatever you want. When the original MXF was proposed I was enthused, until I read the proposal detail and found that it was nothing like what I was hoping for. I am sure that the project name can be reused for a variety of purposes, but I think it is unfair to burden any new project with the first couple of years of misleading history.

In the meantime, as Ed Merks mentioned, Xcore/Xbase provides an extended Ecore framework. With the advent of direct OCL 2 Java code generation for the dispatch table based OCL Virtual Machine, the OCL VM forms the root of another model transformation framework that can be extended to support QVT and other approaches.

 "From our side we will contribute one MXF framework called XOCL, which is simply a set of standardized OCL annotations for ECore models. This is, as Ed Merks mentions simply a usage of existing stuff, not much new. "

This suggests that the new project is more like a library than a tool. However the slides introduce both MCore and XOCL. Unfortunately, as with many PPTs, it is difficult to grasp quite what is going on without the presenter's words and pace. MCore appears to be much more than a library; is it part of the contribution?

The slides conclude with "MCore maps back to ECore + OCL (XOCL) and can be considered as a simplification of modeling with ECore and OCL". I would like to understand how this compares with the OCLinEcore editor and its underlying use of Delegates that were probably not available when the XOCL work was started.

I welcome anything that adds to the capabilities of modeling and OCL in particular, especially anything that adds manpower, however I think the alignment with current projects needs to be clarified and a clear scope and name for a new project identified. Perhaps a meeting at EclipseCon may be helpful.

    Regards

        Ed Willink



On 10/01/2012 07:17, Ed Merks wrote:
Philipp,

I don't imagine what you're planning fits exactly the scope that's been spelled out.  Certainly things have evolved, as you know, since that scope for MXF was written, i.e., the introduction of delegates for operations, constraints, and derived features in EMF.  The combination of these things allow behavioral aspects to be defined directly in the Ecore model in an extensible way that supports languages like OCL.  I'd rather see things like XOCL be part of the OCL project than to revivew a stillborn cross cutting project.  Better the OCL project diversify...

The new Xcore work is also about model execution (for Ecore), to some extent, but I'd rather keep that as part of the EMF project, not move it to a cross cutting project.

I'm not sure how the other PMC members feel about this.  In general we have a large number of dead project that need cleaning up.  Personally, in the future, I'd rather see more life injected into projects that are currently alive.

Regards,
Ed


On 10/01/2012 6:50 AM, Philipp W. Kutter | Montages AG wrote:
Dear Wayne.
Thanks for the clear directions, we will follow them.

I will start by discussing with prospective Architecture Council mentors, for the topic at hand and then follow their advice.

Where is the list of the Architecture Council members, and which projects they already mentor?

Regards, Philipp

On 09.01.2012 20:15, Wayne Beaton wrote:
It seems that by not speaking, the project has spoken. Or something to that effect.

Now it's in the Modeling PMC's hands. With their unanimous consent, we can change the project lead and committers. The easiest thing to do is to replace the project lead and have the new lead retire the existing committers and nominate the replacement committers via the portal.

The Modeling PMC has to have a transparent discussion about this. This discussion--which can be initiated by anyone (either a member of the PMC, or somebody like Philipp)--should include a few words stating that the project team has become unresponsive and that another party has stepped forward to take the helm. The discussion should include some indication of confidence that the new project team is ready for the responsibility in terms of understanding the EDP, working in open source, etc. followed by a minimum of three +1s and no -1s from the PMC.

My records show that the project is in incubation, but has no mentors assigned. As part of this reassignment, I'd like to see at least one Architecture Council mentor identified for the project.

Thanks,

Wayne

On 01/05/2012 11:44 AM, Philipp W. Kutter | Montages AG wrote:
Agree 100%

As you wrote on 26.4. that you will check with them the status, I assumed, that the fact that the project is unresponsive is already here.

How long do we want to wait?

mxf-dev@xxxxxxxxxxx should reach the original people, no? Hello: anyone out there???

Regards, Philipp


On 05.01.2012 15:58, Wayne Beaton wrote:
How does the existing project team feel about this?

The easiest way to proceed is for the existing project team to accept your XOCL contribution, move it into the IP process, and initiate committer elections for the new developers (citing the contribution as the required demonstration of merit). Once on board, you can nominate and elect a new project lead. That lead can retire the inactive committers. The existing project lead can retire by sending me a note.

That's the ideal.

If the project team is unresponsive, the Modeling PMC can--after transparent discussion and unanimous consent--decide to replace the project lead and committers.

Make sense?

Wayne

On 01/05/2012 09:03 AM, Philipp W. Kutter | Montages AG wrote:
Dear Wayne.
I have not seen anything since April now. I assume thus that the project will be either closed, or should be taken over from another party.

In the meantime we increased activities on our own model execution framework, and we definitively would like to take over the project. I cc'd their mail list to see any reaction from the original people.

The scope of the project needs not be changed, as they positioned it as an open project, allowing to welcome all MXF, not only the original proposed one. Thus we will be open for the original contributions, and others coming from the TopcaseD area (see discussion on mail list).

In additon to the original scope, we will much more be focused on project collaboration with other Modeling projects, mainly those implementing OMG standards, such as ECore, OCL, QVTO, Acceleo, and DI from TopcaseD. Here the points we will bring to the scene:

- ECore will be the basis for all metamodels, such that other modeling projects for persistence (such as CDO) and different ways to express syntax (visual, textual, tree/table) can be added easily

- Reuse of _expression_ languages of other projects (OCL, imperative extension of OCL from QVTO, and newer ones like XBase)

We especially intend to use the project to make sure that topics such as dynamic/static binding of operation calls, overriding/overloading, multiple inheritance are solved the same way as in ECore/Java. (we filed Bugzillas for this topic in the OCL project, which where already partially fixed)

From our side we will contribute one MXF framework called XOCL, which is simply a set of standardized OCL annotations for ECore models. This is, as Ed Merks mentions simply a usage of existing stuff, not much new.

Michael Golubev will bring the knowledge to the scene, how to do the builds and will help me to follow all the Eclipse processes. He is the component lead for GMF Tooling and UML2 Tools.

Thus: there needs nothing to be added to the original plan.

Please let us know how to proceed.

Regards,
Philipp



On 26.04.2011 14:54, Wayne Beaton wrote:
Hi Philipp./

The project appears to be dead on arrival :-)

I will check with the PMC and project founders to see what their plans
are. Hopefully you'll see some activity from the project.

Wayne

On 04/26/2011 05:16 AM, Philipp W. Kutter wrote:
Dear Anne.
Has there been any news since 7.4.2009?

I have neither seen the Eclipse page, nor the initial code contribution.

Any input welcome. I will as well try to contact the founders of the
project as soon as I find time.

Regards,
Philipp



Am 07.04.2009 18:47, schrieb Anne Jacko:
Hello all,

Since there has *not* been a request from a member of the Eclipse
community to hold this review on a conference call, there will be no
Review Call tomorrow (April 8, 2009).

The EMO has declared this review to be successful based on the review
docuware and on community feedback. Congratulations to the MXF team on
their successful review.

Please contact emo@xxxxxxxxxxx with any questions. Thanks.






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