How does IEEE 1471 relate to the Unified Modeling Language (UML)?
The Unified Modeling Language provides a family of notations; many of which can, and have, been used for architecture description. A number of organizations already use one or more of the UML notations to address one or more architectural concerns. Under IEEE 1471, these notations may be made part of a viewpoint and used to create an architecture description. By defining these practices as viewpoints, a organization can continue to use the UML while creating architecture descriptions conforming to IEEE 1471. Revision: There is a proposal to add conformance of ADLs (including UML), so that someone may document an ADL, or UML profile, in such a manner that this language conforms to the rules of the standard.
