NEW SLOGAN: opened labview platform brings you to the world of graphic programming.===>by RELEASE the LabVIEW SDK~~~

[hunt978]

I will go straight and may litter bit offend the guys working on developing labview in NI, that since labview 2010, there is less and less suppresses brought to the labview coding folks. But also since labview 2010, I've been 'pleased' most is that ni recognized that 'user driven' is one of the most eye attractting futures labview can provide to the developers. Why not you guys go further, release the labview sdk and turn product labview to platform labview. Then fans and geeks can improve labview developing experience along with the employees at ni directly and efficiently.

Here is my reasons:

FOR US:

1. A powerful and convenient developing environment benefits both labview developers and NI.

FOR PEOPLE:

2. Not only normal engineers, but also professional software engineers choose labview as their developing tool. Trust me, current labview will drive them crazy, like me(three years "torching"). You can never control the threads or memory under the graphic programming concepts, though sometime it mattered.

3. There are so many ideas users want and sometime maybe they can realize it by themselves easily under the access to the labview sdk. Then new fractures can be shared, sold or contributed.

FOR THE ECOSYSTEM

4. We deserve an ecosystem for labview. Roles are like: labview market, developers, users, ni, etc.

敬请拍砖, in English means welcome criticizing~~~

[tst]

If I understand you correctly, this is the same as this idea - http://forums.ni.com/t5/LabVIEW-Idea-Exchange/Open-Source-Labview-core-and-for-services-add-on-s/idi...

[hunt978]

@tst

Sort of, but NOT entirely open source, not even open source of any part of the labview. Just few header files and *.libs that programmers can compile their own function block like the ones under "programming" palette. Microsoft never release the source code of windows, but they provide APIs. To some extent, with DDK(Driver Development Kit) you can really redefine the behaviors of the OS.

I know it never be a easy decision for ni to release the sdk of labview. So take some steps, do it gradually.

STEP 1: sdk for function block

A market of function blocks can be organized at ni.com/labview/market. NI can share the income with developers like Apple considering the commercial part. And at the same time, labview can be upgraded rapidly and become even more powerful than it used to be(one year).

STEP 2: extension or plug-in for labview platform

Microsoft grand the developers to customize of the look and behaviors of every window by providing APIs such as CreateWindows, ShowWindow, etc. It's reasonable NI release APIs around wires, blocks and any other graphic elements on the block diagram. Although LabVIEW scripting already did the same thing, I think it will be more efficient coding them by text but wires. 

STEP 3: open source

After step 1 and 2, labview already becomes the "labview OS". Open source? I don't know.

PS:

MFC is open-sourced but visual studio maybe will never become a open-source project. What I mean is by release the sdk of labview NI gives developers freedom to write powerful library but the core parts of the labview such as the complier for vi, runtime engine for vi are still in the hand of ni, and it's unnecessary to be a part of open-platform/open-source project now.

“步子大了容易扯着蛋”, a line from a very famous and box-office winning (￥724'000'000/$113'450'800) movie <<Let The Bullets Fly>> in China, means one big step will hurt your(men's) balls literally. I think there should be a well planned process of releasing the sdk of labview. 

[Mr.Mike]

For Step 1: It's already possible to do something very very similar to this.  You can create your own palettes and ship them with your code so that your code appears just like everything else.  Unfortunately, neither this nor your idea will make it possible to upgrade LabVIEW more quickly.  There are significant improvements happening all the time in LabVIEW and most of them are part of the editor and compiler systems.  You can build new libraries for LabVIEW, but you can't change how that compiles down to machine code.

For Step 2: We already do that.  In LabVIEW 2011 we have links on the Getting Started Window to JKI's VI Package Manager.  You can also check it out here.

For Step 3: LabVIEW will not become open source.  It's possible to make the code produced in LabVIEW open source, but the application will not become open source.

[G-Money]

Functionality already implemented in LabVIEW.