Don Brutzman

1
Open Standards Open Source for Long-term
Project Success Lessons from 3D Model Management

• Don Brutzman
• Naval Postgraduate School (NPS)
• Center for Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV)
  Research
• Modeling, Virtual Environments Simulation
  (MOVES) Institute
• 6 January 2005

2
Topics

• Open Standards
• Open Standards Organizations
• Open Source
• Intellectual Property Rights
• Business Cases
• Summary

3
Open Standards

• Basis for stability amidst technical innovation
• Basis for interoperability among systems
• Open forums for discussion development
• Non-discriminatory participation by following
  forum rules
• Crucial for long-term success
• Numerous reasons for this, especially IPR
• Web trumps all best business, technical case
• Most overlooked reason for standards success
• Fatal mistakes become nearly impossible, because
  group scrutiny detects rejects them

4
Open Standards Organizations 1

• Results oriented, forums for progress
• Caretakers for stability deliberate evolution
• Enough process to ensure stable rules for a
  working group to fully succeed
• Responsive to member needs
• Positive press and outreach
• Bigger than just industry, important for
  government agencies to support, participate

5
Open Standards Organizations 2

• World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)
  http//www.w3.org
• Web3D Consortium http//www.web3D.org
• Simulation Interoperability Standards
  Organization (SISO) http//www.sisostds.org
• Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)
  http//www.ietf.org
• International Standards Organization (ISO)
  http//www.iso.org (often open, not always)

6
Open Standards Organizations 3

• Object Management Group (OMG) http//www.omg.org
• Open GIS Consortium (OGC) http//www.opengeospatia
  l.org
• Organization for Advancement of Structured
  Information Standards (OASIS)
  http//www.oasis-open.org
• Important to avoid industry forums (cabals)
  that only have buy-in from a few big players

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W3C

• Leading the Web to its Full Potential
  http//www.w3.org
• Central authority for Web standards
• Many activities
• W3C in Seven Points
• http//www.w3.org/Consortium/Points
• Universal Access, Semantic Web, Trust,
  Interoperability, Evolvability, Decentralization,
  Cooler Multimedia

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XML in 10 Points http//www.w3.org/XML/1999/XM
L-in-10-points

• XML is for structuring data
• XML looks a bit like HTML
• XML is text, but isn't meant to be read
• XML is verbose by design
• XML is a family of technologies

• XML is new, but not that new
• XML leads HTML to XHTML
• XML is modular
• XML is basis for RDF and the Semantic Web
• XML is license-free, platform-independent and
  well-supported

350 member companies institutions in World
Wide Web Consortium (W3C) already understand the
business case
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Web3D Consortium

• Open Standards for Real-time 3D Communication
• Extensible 3D (X3D) Graphics
• ISO standard for 3D on the Web
• 40 industry, 200 professional members
• Working groups, proven track record
• Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) Policy
• http//www.web3D.org

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X3D specification components
X3D Specification itself is componentized,
extensible
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Extensible Modeling Simulation Framework (XMSF)

• Web services for all manner of MS
• A composable set of standards, profiles, and
  recommended practices for web-based MS
• Foundational precepts Internet network
  technologies, Extensible Markup Language
  (XML)-based languages, and service-oriented
  architectures for simple messaging
• Enable a new generation of distributed MS
  applications to emerge, develop, interoperate
  with tactical systems
• Many easily repeatable exemplars using Web
  Services
• http//www.MovesInstitute.org/xmsf

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Other XMSF projects

• XML Tactical Chat (XTC)
• XML Overlay Multicast (XOM)
• IEEE Distributed Interactive Simulation (DIS)
  Protocol via XML, Web Services
• Under consideration unlocking legacy Tactical
  Data Link (TDL) protocols
• C2IEDM/CBML semantic ontologies for battlespace
  descriptions, semantics

13
Open Source

• and Business Cases

14
Open Source

• Open for any use, without license fees
• Free freedom to innovate
• Not necessarily free cost (unlike free beer)
• Common shared example implementation(s)
• Not a reference implementation the
  specification/standard hopefully provides that
• Can provide a self-sustaining business model for
  continued activity, improvement
• Can break logjams when company participants cant
  resolve technical issues

15
Open source organizations, references

• Gnu Free Software Foundation (FSF)
• http//www.gnu.org
• Especially important for licenses
• Open Source Initiative (OSI) http//www.opensource
  .org
• Andrew M. St. Laurent, Understanding Open Source
  and Free Software Licensing, O'Reilly 2004.
  http//www.oreilly.com

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Intellectual Property Rights (IPR)

• W3C and Web3D have similar policies
• Any known patented technology must be declared by
  members prior to consideration by working groups
• Any patented technology contributions must be
  licensed on a royalty-free (RF) basis for
  inclusion in an openly used Web standard
• Caveat any legal problem can be solved, but
  only in advance

17
Open Source Licenses

• Necessary to protect access and ownership clearly
  so any other parties can use code
• Also prevents hostile patenting by third party
• Various similar licences available
• Gnu GPL, LGPL, etc. http//www.gnu.org
• FreeBSD
• http//www.opensource.org
• Electronic Frontier Foundation http//www.eff.org

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Business models with Open Source 1

• Contributions can continue regardless
• Independent of access restrictions
• No lock-in to single product or vendor
• Not vulnerable to market ups downs, which might
  block everyone from product access
• Some vendors dont like this right up until
  someone else wins the contract renewal!
• Protects sponsor from possibly fatal problems
• Specific products dont scale with Web anyway

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Business models with Open Source 2

• Service oriented business approaches
• Can provide products or services, adding value
• Multiple complementary efforts possible
• Benefits individual programmers/teams
• Expert knowledge skills not held hostage
• Availability of experts helps companies too
• Succinct synopsis is the government buying or
  renting the code?
• Decide up front, or risk blocking completion

20
Dealing with classified simulations 1

• Most classified information includes specific
  performance parameters, or place/time data
• Algorithms are typically not classified
• Parameter values often openly available
• Federation of American Scientists www.fas.org
• U.S. Naval Institute www.usni.org
• Janes Fighting Ships www.janes.com
• DoD news photos http//www.defenselink.mil/photos
  
• Many other sources

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Dealing with classified simulations 2

• Must carefully include metadata giving precise
  credit to any unclassified resources used
• Best is to have an unclassified scenario
• Work is able to proceed most rapidly
• Separate source code from content
• Classified scenarios simply modify the parameter
  data files
• Code changes are reported back to the outside

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Tools enabling project-team success 1

• Email list with hypermail archives
• Newcomers welcome, also can backtrack topics
• CVS or similar concurrent versioning system
• Frequent updates maintaining working code
• See principles of Extreme Programming (XP)
• Easy, and (once set up) it works very well
• Bugtracking system such as Bugzilla
• Focused dialog on problems and improvements

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Tools enabling project-team success 2

• Join, participate in standards organizations
• May need a technical architecture group
• Meritocracy of core committers, experts
• Heavy hand not needed, good ideas rise to top
• Test cases, conformance suite
• Sometimes challenging, definitely essential
• Auto-installers, examples for regular users
• Daylight encourages good behavior!

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Summary

• Open standards open source for success
• Complements legacy approaches, traditional
  hierarchical stovepipes, provides stability
• Win-win approach for government, industry
• Both wins are needed for program success
• Standards organizations, IPR agreements provide a
  stable playing field for long term
• Questions and collaboration welcome

25
Contact

• Don Brutzman
• brutzman_at_nps.edu
• http//web.nps.navy.mil/brutzman
• Code USW/Br, Naval Postgraduate School
• Monterey California 93943-5000 USA
• 1.831.656.2149 voice
• 1.831.656.7599 fax