Why open source?

It’s easy to get developers and requirements analysts excited about all the powerful things you can do with executable UML.  But then you get the following question:  ‘How can I start playing around with it?’  Answer:  ‘Get hired on a project using it (good luck!) or shell out some serious cash for the tools.’  Result:  Another java programmer is born. 

The key word here is 'play'.  That’s how we learn to use tools with which we eventually do ‘work’.  You cannot skip the ‘play’ step.  Inherent in the concept of ‘play’ is ‘free’.  Many of us are willing to pay when it comes time to do real work on a funded project.  But you can’t skip that first step in the sandbox where interest, skill, experimentation and enthusiasm spring forth.  And a 30 day evaluation followed up with sales pressure, while appropriate for a funded project, throws a stinky wet blanket on the engineering playground.

We want to make the powerful and proven technology of executable UML available to as many students, developers, individual analysis, product visionaries as possible.  An ever expanding cadre of application analyst and software architects have had the experience of building complex systems directly from models rather than source code.  But to do this, we need tools and expertise that rarely coalesce into the critical mass required to carry a project through to completion.  There just isn’t enough platform independent talent out there right now.  miUML is an effort to make executable UML accessible to a wider audience so that the pool of talent, projects and tools becomes the rule rather than the exception.

That said, the ultimate success of any technology lies in the ability to profit from it.  miUML is an attempt to reconcile these two driving factors.  The LPGL3 license treats the miUML metamodels and API as a library that may be freely distributed, modified and used in conjunction with both free and proprietary tools.