REPLY Open Source Simulation Software for SD (SD6793)

[SDMAIL Stefano Armenia - Ateneo]

Posted by  Stefano Armenia - Ateneo <stefano.armenia at uniroma2.it>

Dear Bill,

and dear all reading,

thank you very much for your very interesting information. Actually I 
did not know about the tools you mentioned. I find that that are surely 
worth playing a little bit with them, but all the same the main problem 
remains, which in one word is: INTEROPERABILITY.

I mean, I can also use the tools you mentioned, which of course are not 
so user-friendly as Stella or Vensim or Powersim may be but surely they 
have that Open Source taste which is for those Open Source geeks like me 
or you. But what if, as it probably already happens, it's just you or me 
who use them tools?

I find that the real issue is the one of Open Formats, which should then 
be an available format option also in all proprietary modelling suites. 
Of course, if there was a strong OS Development Community behind the 
tools you mention, this would probably in the long run lead to some OS 
suite which could find compatibility with the proprietary model formats 
as well as try to propose their own model format. But think of what 
happened for example in the OS communities as long as Productivity 
Suites are concerned. I'm thinking of experiences like the one of Open 
Office: they started their struggle against Microsoft Office first by 
allowing only their own format, which was of course open (.odt) but it 
was just them to use it. Then they opened themselves to compatibility to 
MSOffice document types, which was a process that lead in the long run 
Microsoft itself to open their document formats just recently.

Of course the modelling communities are not so wide as the big public of 
people who just have the need to write a couple of pages in a 
wordprocessor, use electronic sheets for calculus, and so on, but the 
OpenOffice experience could probably teach someone that the "Open 
Revolution" could also affect the modelling market, sooner or later. The 
problem is that i do not see the issue of opening the formats as a 
threat, rather as an opportunity.

I probably have my own vision, but if the modelling suites were really 
interoperable on their file formats, probably the competition among the 
modelling software producers would then be on quality of service (i.e. 
functionalities offered to end-users), which is what it should really be 
in the end, i think. My vision is that one day I may be able to use 
either Vensim, or Powersim or Stella and be able to indifferently open 
one of their model formats in a "cross-platform" way... Or be able to 
open on proprietary modelling sw an "open source" model...

I know it's a delicate question, because I'm aware that the SD modelling 
sw houses are making their business by trying to attract customers to 
their platform... but ours is still a quite small community if compared 
to other scientific communities... and  how many of us is really 
changing the modelling software he is always been keen on? Of course I 
know that SD software is quite similar from Suite to Suite, since the 
common base is the SD methodology, but still many of us prefer using 
this rather than that peculiar suite.

So, at last, my questions are:

1. to the SD modelling sw companies (like Vensim, Powersim, Stella, 
Consideo, Anylogic, ecc...): is it sustainable to change your business 
model in order to open your file format and agree on a sort of Open or 
shared standard?
2. looking more into the future: would it be possible to do it also with 
regards to other kind of modelling sw (not necessarily SD related)? I'm 
thinking about Anylogic, Extend, Arena, etc...
3. last but not least: is anyone aware of the existence of any community 
where the development of a user friendly modelling suite for SD (but not 
only) is carried over? If not, I think this might be a very interesting 
issue to be carried on, maybe also with respect to the chance to receive 
adequate funding for an "open" project (I'm saying it with reference to 
EU funding programs)...

Wait for feedback from everyone! :)

Regards,

Stefano Armenia
Posted by  Stefano Armenia - Ateneo <stefano.armenia at uniroma2.it>
posting date  Fri, 7 Mar 2008 00:18:55 +0100