This is just a reminder that the NIST Annual Fire Conference is taking place April 28-30, 2009, in Gaithersburg, Maryland. The workshop agendas have been posted to the web site:
http://www.bfrl.nist.gov/info/fireconf/
The last day for registration is Wednesday, April 22. There is no fee, but all who attend must register to enter the NIST grounds.
The workshop on fire modeling is Wednesday, April 29.
Friday, April 10, 2009
Friday, April 3, 2009
FDS-SMV Project 'Public Domain' License.
Google Code Project Hosting, which we use for our development process, updated their licensing options to include 'Public Domain' as a valid type. This is applicable for US Federal Government Agencies like NIST who by US Copyright law, are required to release their works as Public Domain. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_domain
Chapter 1 of Title 17 of the United States Code states:
When we first setup the fds-smv project we had to select a license option to get the project in the system. At the time the MIT license was the most liberal from those we had to select from. But, still even though we picked MIT for Google Code Hosting requirements, we were careful to clearly state where relevant that everything we are creating and releasing is Public Domain according to US Copyright Law. It took some time in limbo, after some online and offline discussions with the Google Code Hosting Developers, but eventually it all worked out. This additional license option is great news for US Government Open Source Software (OSS) developers, as now we can select the correct option and use these tools without any confusion as to the type of license applied to the work product.
-Bryan
Chapter 1 of Title 17 of the United States Code states:
§ 105. Subject matter of copyright: United States Government works37
Copyright protection under this title is not available for any work of the United States Government, but the United States Government is not precluded from receiving and holding copyrights transferred to it by assignment, bequest, or otherwise.
When we first setup the fds-smv project we had to select a license option to get the project in the system. At the time the MIT license was the most liberal from those we had to select from. But, still even though we picked MIT for Google Code Hosting requirements, we were careful to clearly state where relevant that everything we are creating and releasing is Public Domain according to US Copyright Law. It took some time in limbo, after some online and offline discussions with the Google Code Hosting Developers, but eventually it all worked out. This additional license option is great news for US Government Open Source Software (OSS) developers, as now we can select the correct option and use these tools without any confusion as to the type of license applied to the work product.
-Bryan
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
FDS Configuration Management Plan
Some of you who participate in the FDS/SMV Discussion Group might have noticed an interesting thread lately that concerned the process that we use to update versions of FDS and Smokeview:
http://groups.google.com/group/fds-smv/browse_thread/thread/95ad8e8e35734db3#
In the US and worldwide, there are various standards used to evaluate the process by which engineering software is developed and maintained. For example, NQA-1 and ISO 9001 come to mind. Just do a search on these terms for more information.
The "process" that I speak of goes beyond the technical description of the model algorithm and the Verification and Validation (V&V) work that is documented in the FDS Technical Reference Guide, volumes 1, 2 and 3. It involves everything we do on a daily basis to develop and maintain the model and the software -- this blog, the Discussion Group, the Issue Tracker, the repository, and so on. Because questions like those in the discussion thread above need to be answered, we have issued volume 4 of the FDS Technical Reference Guide:
http://fds-smv.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/FDS/trunk/Manuals/All_PDF_Files/FDS_5_Configuration_Management_Plan.pdf
"Configuration Management" is the term that is commonly used to describe the process of developing and maintaining software.
For those of you who have an interest in this aspect of our work, please let us know what we can add to this Guide to make it easier for you to use. If there is information missing, let us know and we'll add it. We'd prefer that this Guide not get needlessly filled with useless information and excessively bureaucratic language. It should be a straight-forward description of what we do to maintain FDS and Smokeview.
Also, if you or your organization have put FDS/SMV through some sort of "process evaluation" and you are at liberty to share your experience, please do. One of the most important aspects of these process evaluations is peer review, and that term is used in the broadest sense. For example, our experience with the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission is a good example of peer review in that this organization has evaluated our models for certain types of applications. It is a bit tedious to do one of these evaluations starting from scratch. It would be far better to refer to what others have done already.
http://groups.google.com/group/fds-smv/browse_thread/thread/95ad8e8e35734db3#
In the US and worldwide, there are various standards used to evaluate the process by which engineering software is developed and maintained. For example, NQA-1 and ISO 9001 come to mind. Just do a search on these terms for more information.
The "process" that I speak of goes beyond the technical description of the model algorithm and the Verification and Validation (V&V) work that is documented in the FDS Technical Reference Guide, volumes 1, 2 and 3. It involves everything we do on a daily basis to develop and maintain the model and the software -- this blog, the Discussion Group, the Issue Tracker, the repository, and so on. Because questions like those in the discussion thread above need to be answered, we have issued volume 4 of the FDS Technical Reference Guide:
http://fds-smv.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/FDS/trunk/Manuals/All_PDF_Files/FDS_5_Configuration_Management_Plan.pdf
"Configuration Management" is the term that is commonly used to describe the process of developing and maintaining software.
For those of you who have an interest in this aspect of our work, please let us know what we can add to this Guide to make it easier for you to use. If there is information missing, let us know and we'll add it. We'd prefer that this Guide not get needlessly filled with useless information and excessively bureaucratic language. It should be a straight-forward description of what we do to maintain FDS and Smokeview.
Also, if you or your organization have put FDS/SMV through some sort of "process evaluation" and you are at liberty to share your experience, please do. One of the most important aspects of these process evaluations is peer review, and that term is used in the broadest sense. For example, our experience with the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission is a good example of peer review in that this organization has evaluated our models for certain types of applications. It is a bit tedious to do one of these evaluations starting from scratch. It would be far better to refer to what others have done already.
Monday, March 30, 2009
FDS email list
Be advised that this email list is to be discontinued. If you want to
continue to get postings concerning FDS or Smokeview, subscribe to our blog
at:
continue to get postings concerning FDS or Smokeview, subscribe to our blog
at:
Kevin McGrattan
National Institute of Standards and Technology
100 Bureau Drive, Mail Stop 8663
Gaithersburg MD 20899
Phone: 301 975 2712
Fax: 301 975 4052
Friday, February 6, 2009
FDS 5.3 Release
FDS Version 5.3.0 is now available for downloading. Follow the link from:
http://fire.nist.gov/fds/downloads.html
This is considered a "minor" release of FDS. Details of new features, and an explanation of what we mean by "minor" release, can be found at the following page:
http://code.google.com/p/fds-smv/wiki/FDSReleaseNotes
A note about this blog -- we have maintained an FDS/Smokeview blog ("web log") for several years, but until now we have not had much traffic on it. No doubt this is because there are various other means of communicating information about FDS and Smokeview, and there is only so much information that any one person can handle. However, our original e-mailing list has become a bit outdated, and it's time to take advantage of the new tools that are being developed to circulate information. There are a variety of ways that you can now monitor the activity of FDS/Smokeview development, including periodic blog posts.
Another motivation for making greater use of the blog is that occasionally we find a topic or posting in the Discussion Group
http://groups.google.com/group/fds-smv
that deserves greater attention. We may invite, from time to time, the author or authors of a particular post or discussion thread to write a blog post that will be broadcast to the entire user community. The blog will contain more general discussion, rather than details of a particular feature of FDS or Smokeview that you would normally find in the Discussion Group or Issue Tracker.
But do not fear -- you will not be bombarded by the blog posts on a daily basis. They will come periodically if you have signed up for email notification or an RSS feed.
http://fire.nist.gov/fds/downloads.html
This is considered a "minor" release of FDS. Details of new features, and an explanation of what we mean by "minor" release, can be found at the following page:
http://code.google.com/p/fds-smv/wiki/FDSReleaseNotes
A note about this blog -- we have maintained an FDS/Smokeview blog ("web log") for several years, but until now we have not had much traffic on it. No doubt this is because there are various other means of communicating information about FDS and Smokeview, and there is only so much information that any one person can handle. However, our original e-mailing list has become a bit outdated, and it's time to take advantage of the new tools that are being developed to circulate information. There are a variety of ways that you can now monitor the activity of FDS/Smokeview development, including periodic blog posts.
Another motivation for making greater use of the blog is that occasionally we find a topic or posting in the Discussion Group
http://groups.google.com/group/fds-smv
that deserves greater attention. We may invite, from time to time, the author or authors of a particular post or discussion thread to write a blog post that will be broadcast to the entire user community. The blog will contain more general discussion, rather than details of a particular feature of FDS or Smokeview that you would normally find in the Discussion Group or Issue Tracker.
But do not fear -- you will not be bombarded by the blog posts on a daily basis. They will come periodically if you have signed up for email notification or an RSS feed.
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