TOPCASED: a first step toward User-oriented Open Source communities

• Open Source for Industrial Users
• Conference
• Beginner

Since the beginning, software tools have a predominant situation in the avionics workshops.

First developed and maintained as home-made tools, they have quickly been transferred to specialized tool vendors. But after a few years, it has become clear that this customer-supplier organization brings some major drawbacks with respect to the durability in contexts of very long life cycle products like aircrafts. Disappearance of tools, tool vendors merges and closures, inconsistent strategic visions between customers and suppliers, etc. happen frequently and involve expansive re-industrializations.

It is in this context that a group of industrialists and academic partners has gathered together around the CNRT Aeronautics & Space in 2004 to start a project of CASE in open source: TOPCASED was born.

Since then, TOPCASED has been released every 6 / 8 weeks and is now used by numerous industrial projects.

This talk will present TOPCASED goals & history, the lessons learned and how its community is preparing the future thanks to the OPEES initiative.