Open Source Innovation platforms for MBSE?

                              Bernhard Schätz

                    Software and Systems Engineering
                                fortiss GmbH
                  Guerickestr. 25, 80805 Munich, Germany
                             schaetz@fortiss.org



  Abstract. The full potential of model-based systems engineering tools
  can only be realized by providing not only methods to build models for
  documentation or code generation, but also powerful methods of analysis
  and synthesis. This requires expertise from different fields that range
  from meta-modeling via tool architecture issues to semantic theories and
  hardware platforms.
  Currently, closed -source commercial approaches to model-based engi-
  neering specifically in the field of embedded systems have made sub-
  stantial achievements, but can present an impediment to innovations by
  strict IP protection. As a result, open-source initiatives have achieved in-
  creased attention by both industrial and public bodies. An open-source
  based approach, on the one hand, provides the possibility to combine a
  large variety of different techniques and methods by providing an integra-
  tion platform (like a joint meta-model for many different participants),
  while on the other hand it also requires compromises w.r.t. to clarity of
  concepts, like the choise of a model of computation. Both approaches
  have their advantages and disadvantages. In this presentation, we show
  two approaches from either extreme: AF3 a free license model-based
  engineering tool ranging from requirements engineering to schedule gen-
  eration based on a clearly defined semantics; and mbeddr an open-source
  model-based engineering tool focusing on adding language-extensions to
  programing languages based on the C-language semantics. Besides illus-
  trating these approaches, we discuss the advantages and disadvantages
  of either eco-system, and their effect on realizing and disseminating in-
  novations.