MESConf Open Space on SysML v2 and FOSS: Can these 7 tools increase acceptance?

Last week, MESConf took place on the Infineon campus in Munich. As in previous years, there were great presentations, lively open spaces and lively discussions during the breaks. The topics AI and SysML v2 were both very prominent. But for readers of SE-Trends, the Open Space on FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) SysML v2 tools, moderated by Jan Scholz, was certainly worth a visit.

Anniversary: The 10th MESConf

These MESConf was the tenth and therefore a jubilee edition. In these ten years, the event has lost none of its charm. At the same time, many visitors said at the end that this time the topics and people made it one of the best MESConfs to date. So: Keep it up!

MESConf was founded ten years ago by passionate modeling experts. The initiators include Andreas Willert, Tim Weilkiens and Alexander Huwald. Georg Huber from Infineon convinced his employer to make the premises available.

Alexander Schneider, who later joined the founding team, published an anniversary edition with the most exciting contributions.

Open Space

An open space is similar to a BarcampVisitors bring topics and suggest them by posting a short description on a pinboard, which determines the time and space. When the sessions start, interested people simply go to the session, although switching is also allowed.

As I have been attending MESConf for a long time, I was familiar with the format. I had also, together with Walter van der Heiden a session on the topic MBSE & AI.

Jan Scholz posed the question in his Open Space: What open-source SysML v2 tools are available and what do we need them for?

Why do we need FOSS SysML v2 tools?

The participants quickly agreed that open tools are a good idea. Of course, the discussion about open and free could not be missed. Hence the term FOSS, as we wanted to examine SysML v2 tools that are free or open, or both, of course.

The participants were very pragmatic here. They all understood that Open Source need a solid business model and just want something that works for their problems.

With this in mind, we came up with the following use cases:

• TeachingIn teaching, open tools help to introduce students to SysML v2. This avoids many real problems, such as the provision of budgets, configuration of license keys and the like.
• ResearchIn research, costs are not so much the problem. Rather, researchers often want to expand tools, which is often difficult or even impossible with commercial offerings.
• ViewerMany users don't necessarily want to model, but want to be able to view models. This is a real problem that a simple tool could alleviate.
• Low-threshold entryMany people simply want to continue their education and would even be prepared to spend money on it. Some frustration came to light on this subject, from manufacturers such as Dassault or Mathworks, who serve this user group very poorly or not at all.

7 open and free SysML v2* tools

Only five of the tools listed here support SysML v2, but all of them are very close to it.

Once the scope and degree of openness had been clarified, the group worked out the following list together:

• Eclipse Reference Implementation: The Reference implementation I had already reviewed it here at SE-Trends. It uses Eclipse as a platform and provides both server and client. The client masters textual notation and can display diagrams.
• SysON: SysON I have also already examined this tool. This tool is exciting because it runs in a web browser and therefore lowers the barrier to entry even further. Obeo offers a commercial tool based on SysON.
• Jupyter Notebook: Also the Jupyter Notebook I have already presented here. It is ideal for research and experiments, as models can be mixed with free text.
• SysIDE: Pronounced as "See-Side" is SysIDE also open source, with a commercial counterpart. The developers have chosen Visual Studio Code as their platform, an IDE that has now become the standard in software development.
• MontiCore: MontiCore is a platform for dealing with DSLs and now supports the textual SysML v2 notation.
• Gaphor: Gaphor does not yet support SysML v2. However, there are an open ticket for this. Since it is open source, someone would have to do it.
• SysMD: (update) This tool supports a large subset of SysML v2 and will be expanded further. Binaries for Mac and Windows are also available.

FOSS & SysML v2: The way to the mainstream?

During this session, I got to know new tools that I definitely hadn't had on my radar. I'm sure I'll get to grips with one or two of these tools more intensively in the coming months. I'm pleased that there are quite a few options, some of which are also very powerful and user-friendly.

The world of software development has shown how important FOSS is for the dissemination of a technology and that successful business models can also be based on open source. I am cautiously optimistic that this lesson has also been learned in systems engineering.