How to develop, maintain and share open source software in a scientific environment

Lisbeth BergholtGoOpen april 20th 2010

Norwegian Meteorological Institute met.no

Outline

• Met.no's software and data policy

• Case study: Diana – DIgital ANAlysis– Why make Diana Open Source?– How to make Diana Open Source? – Experiences with running an Open Source project

Norwegian Meteorological Institute met.no

Software and data policy

All data and software produced at met.no are payed for by the public and should be freely available to the public

Norwegian Meteorological Institute met.no

• Web Map Services– Data available as

layers in WMS

• Software– https://svn.met.no

Norwegian Meteorological Institute met.no

Open Source Project – Case Study

Diana -DIgital ANAlysis● application to visualise

and edit meteorological data

● Used by forecasters and scientists

Norwegian Meteorological Institute met.no

How did the Diana project start?

• 1998– Weather charts were drawn by

hand– The avalible digital

visualiasation tools were not tailored for operational use

– There was a need for an application to visualise and edit meteorological data

Norwegian Meteorological Institute met.no

Buy or develop an application?

• Comercial application– Expensive– Difficult to maintain– Legal limitations

• Develop an application – Takes time– Easier to maintain– Can we manage?

• Use an Open Source application– There was none available

Norwegian Meteorological Institute met.no

Diana

• Developed at met.no • Small development group• Developed in close dialog with the users

– Forecasters – Scientist

• Tailored for met.no's use• Ongoing development• 2001 - operational

Norwegian Meteorological Institute met.no

How to share Diana?

Others were interested in Diana.How should we marked it?

• Comercial application?– Costumers would expect support– Diana would need customization

• Open Source?– No formal obligations– Customization done by users– Contributions

Norwegian Meteorological Institute met.no

Diana released under the GPL license

• Others can use, develop and distribute the code

• Others can sell the software and support• They can not include the code in other

programs under an incompatible license

For details on the GPL licence see:http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html

Norwegian Meteorological Institute met.no

How to make an Open Source project?

• Choose a license• Code review

– Third party components – incompatible licenses?

– Documentation– Generalize the code & interfaces

• Web site– diana.met.no

• Email address– diana@met.no

Norwegian Meteorological Institute met.no

• 2005 – first version of GPL Diana– Too difficult to compile and install– Too difficult to use – To many inhouse data formats

• 2010 – Diana version 3.19.1– Possible to install and use– Bug reports and feedback– Contributions– Still not a professional project

Norwegian Meteorological Institute met.no

Status – who uses Diana?

• Formal cooperation with the Swedish Meteorological Institute

• Storm Weather Center • Other Norwegian and foreign institutions

and businesses

Norwegian Meteorological Institute met.no

Snowball effect at met.no

• More Open Source projects• Met.no uses Open Source software

wherever possible• Met.no encurages developers to

participate in Open Source projects• Open Data Policy

Norwegian Meteorological Institute met.no

Snowball effect outside met.no

• yr.no sets the bar for open data policy in Norwegian public institutions

Norwegian Meteorological Institute met.no

Thank you