Openwings team open to collaborators

The Openwings team is actively seeking collaborators, an open approach unusual

for military systems development.

The Openwings Community Process is modeled after the Java Community

Process adopted by commercial industry for development of Java computer

language specifications.

The process includes a Process Management Organization, an executive

team composed of military and industry sources and made responsible for

overseeing the development of all Openwings specifications. In addition,

an Openwings Specification Participant — any company, organization or individual,

can participate in the process by proposing new specifications and serving

on the expert teams.

"We would like to have an ad that says, "All those who are interested

in participating, please contact me,'" said David Usechak, Army product

manager for common software in the program executive office for command,

control and communications systems, Fort Monmouth, N.J. He added that the

team already has seen some interest from WorldCom Inc. and from the commercial

sector of Motorola Inc., whose government sector already is involved.

The development process is described by industry documentation as a

formal, auditable process consisting of seven phases that take a concept

through implementation:

* Openwings specification request review, in which new specification

requests are reviewed and either accepted or rejected.

* Expert group formation of military, industry and other parties interested

in development of the architecture.

* Participant draft, during which the expert group develops the initial

draft of a specification.

* Participant review, during which the expert group receives comments

from other participants.

* Public review, in which the specification is made available to the

general public and posted on the public Web site.

* Beta release, which includes releasing both the specification and

software for download from the public World Wide Web site with developers

encouraged to work with the beta software and report bugs back to the expert

team.

* Maintenance, the final phase, which calls for the beta tested product

to be formally released as a completed specification.