It started as way of improving architectural modelling in rail. Based originally on MODAF all the defence-specific stuff was stripped out and with simplification it is now a general purpose systems-focussed framework.
EA was what it started off in and has been the tool to define the UML profile and a custom plugin for EA itself. Learn a lot in the process.
The good news is that the framework has been released as open source and is sponsored by the UK department for Transport as part of a bigger push for systems engineering.
Not saying it's perfect - we know it isn't. It's good enough for practical purposes and we have a list of things that need looking at. What I hope is, being open source, that anyone needing to apply it in a particular situation and finding it lacking can then get involved to solve the problem. Application and usability are all important - more so than any theoretical underpinning. The framework is not a system - this only arises when you add tools, people, organisations and therefore you always have to address visibility, navigation, affordance etc - in short the user interface for the whole thing. We hope in this way that TRAK will be user-centric and problem-led rather than specification-centric.
Anyway, that's the utopian vision which can only be achieved if others get stuck in!
It has been released in 4 products: 1) metamodel 2) UML profile 3) Viewpoint and stereotype definitions 4) Sparx Enterprise Architect file / plugin.
As open source products they're all on sourceforge:
http://trakviewpoints.sourceforge.net http://trakumlprofile.sourceforge.net http://trakmetamodel.sourcefore.net http://mdgfortrak.sourceforge.net The best way to monitor progress is to subscribe to the RSS feeds on each site so that you receive notifications as news and files are updated.
If anyone is interested in the difference between TRAK and MODAF the Viewpoints document released yesterday and the Metamodel released today provides the baseline wrt MODAF 1.2..
Perahps even the Sparxians might be interested?
