Off topic-graph layout tools (was Re: [INTERFACES] Re: [HACKERS] Case tool)

"Ross J. Reedstrom" <reedstrm(at)wallace(dot)ece(dot)rice(dot)edu> writes:

> Sometimes, I think the problem is that, although there's a number of
> academic projects working on the general problem of graph layout,
> they all seem to want to commercialize their code, rather than
> contribute it to the community. A consequence, I think, of how
> expensive good commercial CASE tools are: makes it easier to imagine
> turning your pet project into some money, I suppose.

For graph layout, there's vcg, which is GPL (but the algorithms
themselves are obfuscated, which sort of reduces its value).

AT&T have published pretty detailed descriptions of the algorithms
they use in dot and whatever the other ones are called. You can
download papers on this from their web site. Someone sufficiently
interested ought to be able to knock something sane up fairly quickly,
I'd have thought. I think it would be a great thing to have---I'd be
willing to put some effort into it.

I got email from Stephen North (one of the authors) in November saying
he was asking for permission to release graphviz as open source, which
would be amazingly cool---I could imagine graphical tools sweeping the
Linux and *BSD worlds. Obviously, that hasn't happened. Maybe it
would be worth prodding him, just to see if there's any chance?