Are you a researcher or developer interested in sustaining open source software? This content discusses challenges, strategies, and organizations that provide support.
Sustaining a scientific software project is a difficult task. One strategy for sustaining scientific software is to build a community of open source contributors.
This page documents resources available for maintainers of open source software (OSS), from reports and books discussing the problems facing OSS maintainers, to foundations and nonprofits that can potentially provide community funding for open source projects. Much scientific software is open source, and the needs of mainstream open source projects frequently overlap with those of the scientific community. Better Scientific Software encourages leveraging the wisdom of existing successful projects to implement your sustainability plan.
Reports and books on open source software
| Resource information | Details |
|---|---|
| Book title | Roads and Bridges: The Unseen Labor behind Our Digital Infrastructure |
| Authors | Nadia Eghbal |
| Publication | 2016 |
The Roads and Bridges: The Unseen Labor behind Our Digital Infrastructure is a report authored by Nadia Eghbal in 2016 by Ford Foundation. This is a report that talks about long-term sustainability of open source software infrastructure.
| Resource information | Details |
|---|---|
| Resource name | Open Source Guides |
| Website | https://opensource.guide/ |
| Focus | Sustainability |
The Open Source Guides is a website by GitHub. It contains a series of how-tos on launching and sustaining open source projects. Information includes topics on starting a project, licensing, maintaining, establishing community governance, and finding funding.
| Resource information | Details |
|---|---|
| Book title | Producing Open Source Software |
| Authors | Karl Fogel |
| Publication | 2005, ISBN-10: 0596007590, ISBN-13: 978-0596007591 |
The Producing Open Source Software book was authored by Karl Fogel in 2005. It discusses various aspects of managing a community of open source developers.
Podcasts
| Resource information | Details |
|---|---|
| Podcast title | Request for Commits |
| Presenters | Nadia Eghbal and Mikeal Rogers |
| Web links | Request for Commits Podcast |
Request for Commits is a podcast about the human aspects of software development, focusing on software sustainability. It includes many interviews with leaders in major open source projects.
| Resource information | Details |
|---|---|
| Podcast title | RCE Podcast |
| Presenters | Brock Palen and Jeff Sqyres |
| Web links | RCE Podcast |
The RCE Podcast is a podcast that covers open source projects in HPC. It includes many interviews with maintainers, researchers, and developers of popular HPC software projects.
Foundations and nonprofits that fund open source development
| Resource information | Details |
|---|---|
| Organization name | NumFOCUS |
| Website | NumFOCUS |
| Focus | Sustainability |
NumFOCUS is A501 (c) nonprofit focused on sustaining open source projects in data science.
| Resource information | Details |
|---|---|
| Organization name | Linux Foundation |
| Website | Linux Foundation |
| Focus | Collaboration |
The Linux Foundation is a nonprofit technology trade association chartered to promote, protect, and advance Linux and collaborative development.
| Resource information | Details |
|---|---|
| Organization name | OpenHPC |
| Website | OpenHPC |
| Focus | Collaboration |
OpenHPC is a Linux Foundation Collaborative Project whose mission is to provide a reference collection of open-source HPC software components and best practices, lowering barriers to deployment, advancement, and use of modern HPC methods and tools.
Grants
| Resource information | Details |
|---|---|
| Organization name | National Science Foundation (NSF) |
| Website | NSF |
| Focus | Funding science |
The NSF offers funding for Software Infrastructure for Sustained Innovation (SI2) and has frequent calls for proposals.
| Resource information | Details |
|---|---|
| Organization name | Department of Energy (DOE) |
| Website | DOE |
| Focus | Funding science |
DOE and other agencies work with the U.S SBIR Program to help small businesses conduct R&D. The website provides information to starting companies on how to apply for SBIR funding, which is a potential way to productize and sustain an open source project started on research funds. See the ASCR SBIR page to get started.
| Resource information | Details |
|---|---|
| Organization name | Sloan Foundation |
| Website | Sloan Foundation |
| Focus | Funding science |
The Sloan Foundation and the Moore Foundation offer grants in science and technology, among other areas. They have funded large data science initiatives that support open source, such as the Moore-Sloan Data Science Environments (MSDE) and the Jupyter Project.
| Resource information | Details |
|---|---|
| Organization name | Ford Foundation |
| Website | Ford Foundation |
| Focus | Funding science |
The Ford Foundation has grants dedicated to fighting inequality. One thrust area is technology for the public interest, which funded the Roads & Bridges report on open source.
