CSDMS 2015 annual meeting poster AlbertKettner
CSDMS Tools to Promote Visibility of Open-source Model Code
Irina Overeem, CSDMS, INSTAAR, University of Colorado, Colorado, United States.
Abstract:
CSDMS encourages and supports the effort of developers to provide their numerical models as truly open source codes. CSDMS uses GitHub as their software version control system to provide access for those who want to share their model source code regardless of whether a model is still in development or for stable versions. GitHub keeps track of current and historical versions of source code, it allows for easy download, makes code highly visible, and permits for easy contributions, even from parties that are not directly associated with the developers core team. All one needs to contribute code to GitHub is a Git client version on your computer. Not every developer may be familiar with GitHub, therefore developers can provide source code to CSDMS and the Integration Facility will maintain the GitHub repository. Additionally if developers want to learn more about Git and GITHub, CSDMS has provided Git/GitHub software bootcamps and clinics in the past and envisions to provide such in upcoming annual meetings as well.
CSDMS promotes open source code as it reduces redundancy; it guarantees re-use and it makes research more replicable. At the same time CSDMS strives to ensure that model developers receive recognition for their work, even when code is submitted but not (yet) described in a scientific journal. Therefore CSDMS was one of the first organizations to adopt the Digital Object Identifier (DOI) system for source code. For this, we collaborated with IEDA (Integrated Earth Data Applications, hosted at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University). Now that this practice is becoming more commonplace, we have switched to using the DOI service of Zenodo (CERN) as it has an easy to use and integrated tool through GitHub.
With the help of a brief model description form on the CSMDS portal, the developers can provide basic model information and indicate under which software license the model source code is available. Licensing software ensures the developer that models once made freely available will continue to be available for the community, even if others are 'upgrading' your code. At the same time appropriate open-source licenses protect the development team. CSMDS advises which software licenses to use.
Finally, CSDMS promotes contributions of open source software by highlighting newly submitted models at the FrontPage of its website and through social media.
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