Proposal for an Worldwide Data Introspector XML/RDF API layer for software.

Dear All,

My name is James Michael DuPont, and am new to the RDF list.
I have been working on my free time in the past two years on XML
interfaces into Free software.

I have noticed your interesting discussion of UML,XMI and RDF.
That is why I am writing to you all in a call for discussion about the
future of SoftwareMetadata exchange in the new millennium. 
Currently I am working on XML interfaces into GCC, BISON and Perl with
the goal of creating a standard software meta-data exchange format. 
The great thing about free software that allows for access to the
source code is that it can be patched easily given a introspector
library. Of course this will not preclude others from using this data
format and data, per say, even if there will be limits to the secure
access to some data from free software via a secure web service.

Your work on RDF, UML and DAML has been a real inspiration for me, and
I am interested in using the great work that you have been doing.

We are approaching the limits of the current understanding of linking
and derived works in an networked and self descriptive systems, the GPL
covers copyright, but not the output of the software.
However, Where does ones creative work start and end is much more
easier
defined. 
Given a secure network invocation provided by a authenticating web
service, we should be able to limit the possibility of abuse of this
data, while providing an open standard.

I hope that you appreciate my humble proposal.

Note that I do have running code and examples, 
I have already XMLized all of the code GCC via a bootstrap, and am
working on ECMA344(CSHARP) support via the DOTGNU project.

The (XML/RDF)ization of BISON will provide a good starting point for
creating ONTOLOGIEs out of existing grammars.

Please feel free to respond to the mailing list
introspector-developers@lists.sourceforge.net. 

James Michael DuPont.

-----------------------------------
Here is my proposal : 
-----------------------------------
I propose the following API into free software development tools
to be licensed for the orderly, secure, fast, and high tech buzzword
compliant data backbone for a new gnu development environment.

ABSTRACT

The Introspector is a tool chain to extract meta-data about your
programs from the compiler and present it to you for making your job as
a programmer easier.

The software is free software in the spirit of the GNU manifesto and is
revolutionary in the freedoms that it intends on granting to its users.
There are many many licensing and legal issues addressed by this
project, and my guideline for resolving them are to limit the usage of
the tool for non-free software if there is a need to.  The legal and
licensing FAQ will be posted in the next weeks.

This Meta-Data includes all data collected about your software by the
Compiler, the Make system, the Project and Packaging system,
the CVS Logs and the Mailing List.

The Introspector's scope was originally just the GCC C compiler, but
will be expanded to include the extraction of  meta-data from different
compilers and interpreters.

The programs meta-data will be provided as a Perl/C#/(XML/RDF/DAML)/SQL
or plain old C/C++ interface.

We will build tools to allow this meta-data to be processed by various
GUI tools, Graph Layout Tools like VCG, Diagram Editors like DIA, and
Editors like EMACS.

Also Language bindings like 
compiling (gcc(C, C++, java) | cscc(CSHARP))
scripting (guile|Python|Perl { via inline::* }|Ruby)
reasoning (guile|scheme|lisp|prolog)
repository (GDBM|(POSTGRES|MYSQL)XIndice)
communication (soap|xmlrpc| +  a new development of a REST api)

This meta-data will be stored in a repository and available to tools
that need it via many different interfaces.

I look forward to your comments.

Please come visit my updated webpage at :
http://introspector.sourceforge.net/

You will find an copy of related snippets and news at :
 the blogger : http://gccintrospector.blogspot.com

Best regards,
Mike


=====
James Michael DuPont
http://introspector.sourceforge.net/

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Received on Monday, 1 July 2002 06:47:15 UTC