A major shortcoming of MPS is that it requires client-side installation of a large Java application. In line with the general trend to move systems into the (public or private) cloud, it is clearly necessary to start down this path for MPS as well.
As many of you know, itemis, and in particular, Sascha Lisson, has been experimenting in this direction for a while. He has built prototypes that bring existing MPS editors into the browser, render models as HTML and that use a database-backed storage with operational-transform for collaborative editing. All run MPS on the server to handle model processing.
As a next step, itemis is planning to open source the code for these prototypes and continue its further development as an open source project. The initial goal is to develop a Cloud MPS in the sense that MPS is required on the server, but editors are made available in browser. Longer term, the goal will likely evolve to replacing MPS with a new engine, roughly in line with the Active Repository that was proposed by Markus Voelter and discussed in the community for a while.
At this point itemis is reaching out to those individuals and organizations who might want to contribute to this effort. Assuming there’s interest, itemis will decide the project infrastructure and decide on the licensing of the code.
I would be thrilled to participate. I am in particular interest in the database-backed storage, and the plans for an active repository. Ideally I would like to combine it with the work I am doing on WebEditKit to make possible to create editors with web technologies, so that editor can be created or at least easily modified by Web developers, who are not necessarily language developers. I think it would make possible to have a seemless integration with web applications. I do not know if this is possible and if this type of extensibility fit in the plans you have for this project, but on my side I would love to get involved in any case.
I think yes, @slisson or @voelter are the right persons to confirm that but I think Modelix is the OSS version of the work initially created at Itemis as Cloud MPS. I think Modelix is more ambitious that that initial version
@ftomassetti, as a way to manage the information within the community especially with regards to this topic, is there a way to mark this thread as somehow “archived” (or something similar) and redirect the members to the relevant thread? That way, the thread is still available for documentation (among other purposes) while, at the same time, providing the fastest way to guide the members to the latest or most relevant thread. Something like a pinned post at the top of this page that contains all the relevant info: current status of the thread, and the link to the latest thread, if that feature is possible.
In the absence of a feature like a pinned post or tags, this should be fine, I think. The only downside really is that readers have to wade through the entire thread until they see the BIG BOLD announcement. If the thread is short enough, it will be fine but something as exciting as this one might be a minor inconvenience to some, especially the new ones.
