Is there any free software other than ProR to create ReqIF documents?

Question

I have tried using ProR to create an ReqIF document. It is cumbersome and contains a lot of bugs, since it is in its alpha state now. Another constraint that I have right now is that I cannot use proprietary software like IBM Rational DOORS. Are there any other such tools to generate ReqIF documents? Are there any alternatives to ProR?

Answer 1

I am the project lead on the Eclipse ProR project, and I am sorry to hear that ProR is not yet up to it for your needs.

As far as I know, there is not even commercial support for ReqIF available (please correct me if I am wrong). DOORS currently only supports RIF 1.2. Also, please keep in mind that ReqIF 1.0.1 only got released in April 2011 - that's not even a year. It takes time to write software. :-)

A possible alternative for you may be to use a RIF tool and to write yourself an XSLT script to transform RIF into ReqIF.

Another alternative is to work with RIF 1.1 or RIF 1.2 for the time being. There are many commercial tools supporting that standard, although I am not aware of a single one that is free.

The third (and to me preferred) option would be if you could give ProR another chance, and help to improve it. Specifically, if you could give us clear, reproducible bug reports, that would be fabulous. Also, it would be incredible useful if we knew how you plan on using ProR (what are your use cases?). We are actively working on ProR right now, and respond fairly quickly.

Here is the link to file a ProR Bug in Bugzilla

The best place to discuss usage and use cases is the RMF Forum

And last, for reference, the ProR project web page

Answer 2

I am project member of the ERA ReqIF editor.

We have implemented an EMF/Ecore representation of a subset of the ReqIF model. Still, we store files primarily in EMF XML format. Our little converter to ReqIF XML format is yet a prototype and very alpha (because we focus on our user-configurable GUI...).

In conclusion, ERA will not help you, yet. But I just wanted to let you know. Probably you are interested in tracking our project in the future. (We are a small private team and it will take us some time.)

Answer 3

Shriram, RIF 1.2 files generated in DOORS 9.x do not conform to the schema - that's at least what we have experienced at a customer site.

If you want to transform RIF 1.1a, 1.2 or XLS to ReqIF (and vice-versa), you might want to try http://www.pyrrho.com/en/ReqIF/ReqIF-Intro.htm. They run an online conversion service, which is currently free - I do not know what the future plans are.

I have heard from a colleague that the User Interface of Pyrrho is not quite intuitive, but I have tried it and it works. The XLS to RIF/ReqIF transformation is still limited, as all datatypes are interpreted as strings, so far. It is generated from the models, so it should be complete, otherwise.

Our tool, the ReqIF Server (http://www.reqif.de), is free for university projects, but not complete enough to create a reqif file from scratch. You can edit existing ones, though. Or convert RIF 1.1a to 1.2 and vice versa.

Best regards, Oskar