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About Genworks

The short version

Genworks International, a d.b.a. of Knowledge Based Solutions, a Michigan corporation, has built knowledge-based engineering software since 1997. The engine is Gendl or Genworks GDL: a declarative language that captures engineering knowledge as executable code. Since 2002 it has run production applications in aerospace, automotive, and manufacturing. Today Genworks provides the whole workstation the engine runs in: Basalt, the deployment; Readymacs, the editing console; and Lisply-MCP, through which AI agents work in the live system.

Open source

In 2011 Genworks released the GDL kernel as the Gendl project, under the AGPL. Genworks GDL adds the AGPL exceptions, the industrial components, and the support that production work sometimes requires. The workstation around both engines, Basalt with the Readymacs editing console and Lisply-MCP, is free and open source, maintained by Genworks.

Relationships

  • •
    Franz Inc: Allegro Common Lisp, developed continuously since 1984, with support continuity agreements in place.
  • •
    Solid Modeling Solutions: the SMLib NURBS kernel, under a license that predates NVIDIA's acquisition of the company.
  • •
    HarmonyWare: STEP and IGES translation, working directly on SMLib geometry.
  • •
    The Common Lisp community: the language, the implementations Gendl runs on, and the libraries around them.

How Genworks works

Genworks is privately held and has been continuously since 1997. It builds engineering knowledge systems meant to run for decades, on a language standard that has not changed since 1994.