bertrand@eiffel.UUCP (Bertrand Meyer) (10/23/90)
Today marks the official launching of the Nonprofit
International Consortium for Eiffel (NICE), as a non-profit
corporation incorporated in the State of California. NICE is now
accepting members and proceeding to full operation.
NICE will be an international, industry-wide nonprofit
organization dedicated to advancing the state of the art in
software engineering and object-oriented technology through the
Eiffel method, libraries and language.
The impetus for the creation of NICE came from large users
of Eiffel in the US, Europe and Australia, who emphasized the
need for standards and industry consensus to ensure the worldwide
progress of the technology. Two planning meetings were held in
the Spring of 1990; reflecting the international nature of Eiffel
industry involvement, one of the meetings took place in Palo Alto
and the other in Paris. The companies represented at the meetings
included IBM, Xerox, BNR, Alcatel, Tetra, Information Builders,
the CNET and many others.
At the Spring meetings, the representatives of Interactive
Software Engineering announced their intention of releasing the
design of the language and the specification of the basic Eiffel
libraries in the public domain, and releasing control over their
evolution to NICE.
I personally see in this event the potential for a major
overhaul of the software industry. The software engineering
profession has been talking for too long about the need for an
industry of software components, similar to what exists in
hardware. Eiffel is the medium that has made this dream possible
at last. What was missing was the organizational structure; now
it is here.
In particular, this is a tremendous opportunity for
entrepreneurs in search of the hottest market in the software
industry, for large companies who want to make their software
investments profitable, for compiler writers who need a stable
language standard, and for scientists who participate in the
advancement of the discipline.
Many thanks to all Eiffel users, especially those who pushed
us to turn the Consortium idea into a reality. (A particular note
of gratitude to Serban Gheorghe and Ragui Kamel from BNR.)
As far as I know, Eiffel will be only major programming
language directly controlled by an industry consortium open to
any interested user.
NICE working groups will start functioning as soon as
possible. The first general member meetings will be held at the
forthcoming TOOLS conferences in Sydney (November 26-28, 1990)
and Paris (March 4-8, 1991).
NICE is open to any company or individual interested in
advancing the state of the technology. There are two membership
categories: Regular Member and Charter Member. A status of
``Educational Associate'' is also available to universities.
Interactive Software Engineering will take care of the
secretariat of the Consortium for the transitional period, until
a permanent home is found.
To receive full information about membership in NICE, please
contact Darcy Harrison by calling 805-685-1006, faxing to 805-
685-6869 or e-mailing to darcyh@eiffel.com. Please include your
mailing address so that we can send a full package. All the
participants at the Palo Alto and Paris meetings will be
contacted directly, so they do not need to do anything at this
point. OOPSLA attendees are invited to stop at the Eiffel booth
for information.
--
-- Bertrand Meyer
bertrand@eiffel.com