In two bugs, (Bugs 507968 and 513036), Peter has indicated the following issues:
We have had some severe issues with a Google Document version of this document to lose lots of information in certain figures (check for example Figure 2 and Figure 3 in the Google Document version and you will see that they have lost their text/labels). Bran decided to revert back to maintaining the profile document in the original Word Document format. I suggest that we if/when the proposed changes actually are to be included, that this is made in the original Word document.
But due to format issues with this document on Google Document format, it is highly recommended that the UML-RT profile document is further maintained/updated on its original Word Document format.
Are there other issues apart from the diagrams issue listed in Bug 507968?
That particular issue is caused by the inability of Google Doc to properly handle Visio “models.” For that particular case, I would contend that those images should really be created in Papyrus and imported as images into a document, regardless of the editing tool used.
An even better approach would be to \use something like GenDoc to automatically create the document (we would still need a Word or OpenDocument file for this) - but that’s a “Future” endeavor.
The advantages of the Google Drive are the capability of “real time” collaboration and the automatic creation of a limited number of versions. I would contend that we do not really need collaboration for a specification document.
However, retaining previous versions should be done. Currently, if you look at the Google drive folder there this particular document is stored, there is an “archive” folder to hold previous versions. File names are also annotated with he date and time of the last change. I would request that this be done for each update to the document so that we can retain history (it would be better if we could automate this…, but again “Future”). Note that I have used the same approach to versioning in many other folders in the Google Drive.
For now, my preference at this point would be to update the Word document, as Peter suggests, and ensuring that versioning is done as per the previous paragraph, so that we can maintain a history of the changes.
In the short/medium term, we must replace the Visio drawing with a Papyrus model - we have to use our own tools whenever possible.
In the medium/long term, we should be able to generate that documentation from models (e.g., using GenDoc).
Finally, we will need to officially “publish” these documents at some point in time. The questions are then ones of copyright and license, and of publishing format (Word, OpenDocument, wiki, etc.). By default, and as the author of the document as per its properties, the copyright for belongs to Bran (copied), so I need to discuss that with him.
Thoughts and comments are welcome.
Regards,
Charles Rivet Senior Product Manager, Papyrus-RT product leader
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