Ouvrir la Science – International workshop “Software, Pillar of Open Science”

“Software has now become essential in all areas of scientific research, both as a research tool, as a research product and as a research object. In the quest to make research results reproducible, and pass knowledge to future generations, we must preserve these three main pillars: research articles that describe the results, the data sets used or produced, and the software source code that embodies the logic of the data transformation. The preservation of software source code is as essential as preserving research articles and data sets.

The main aim of this in-person half-day event, organized by the Committee for Open Science, is to bring together high-level stakeholders from a variety of backgrounds, including founders, research evaluation bodies, infrastructures and academic Open Source Program Offices (OSPOs), researchers, software research engineers, to share their experiences and views on research software.

The workshop will feature 3 panel sessions in which speakers will focus on major dimensions of relevance to software in Open Science:

Recognize and support the dissemination of software
Software as a key pillar for reproducible research
Highlight the social impact of software…”

Governments turn to Open Source for sovereignty | OpenSource.net

The German government has launched a new Open Source software project called openDesk, which aims to reduce the country’s dependency on proprietary software vendors and support transparency and interoperability.

openDesk is a collection of Open Source software modules that are important for day-to-day work in the public sector, such as text creation, file collaboration, project management, email, calendar and messaging.

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Do we really need another non-open source available license? • The Register

“Following in the tradition of Server-Side Public License (SSPL), Common Clause, and the Business Source License, the FSL nods at the importance of open source while sneering at its heart by claiming its approach is “Freedom without Free-riding.” …

As Thierry Carrez, vice chair of the Open Source Initiative (OSI) board, told me, “Some companies have built their software by leveraging the body of open source code available to them, without having to ask for permission before using hundreds of open source packages in their dependencies. They built their reputation by publicly committing to the open source principles. But in a short-sighted effort to capture incrementally more value, they later decide to abandon the model that made them successful in the first place.” Exactly so….

Maybe it will. But I agree with Carrez, who said: “Releasing yet another license variant that removes developers’ self-sovereignty in their technical choices is nothing novel: it is still about removing essential freedoms from the whole software ecosystem to clearly assert ownership over their proprietary software and the use you are allowed to make of it. This is not open source: it is proprietary gatekeeping wrapped in open washed clothing.” ”

SoFAIR: The Open University to coordinate new international project to facilitate the reproducibility of research studies – CORE

“We are pleased to announce that the Open University has just been awarded a new research grant in the international CHISTERA Open Research Data & Software Call which aims to enhance the discoverability and reusability of open research software.

Open research software and data are pivotal for scientific innovation and transparency, but are often not cited as first-class bibliographic records. Much of these software mentions therefore remain concealed within the text of research papers, hampering their discoverability, attribution, and reuse. This, in turn, makes it harder to reproduce research studies. The SoFAIR project (from Making Software FAIR) aims to address this critical issue by enhancing the management of the research software lifecycle and ensuring research software and data adheres to the FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable) principles. The project will build on the existing capabilities of the open scholarly infrastructures operated by the project partners. SoFAIR is a €499k international project coordinated by (1) The Open University in partnership with (2) INRIA, France; (3) Brno University of Technology, Czech Republic; (4) the Polish Academy of Sciences (PAN), Poland; and (5) The European Molecular Biology Laboratory’s European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI), United Kingdom. SoFAIR is funded under the 2022 CHIST-ERA Open and Reusable Research Data and Software (ORD) call.”

The Library of Congress plays a critical role in preservation and providing public access to cultural heritage materials | Internet Archive Blogs

“The Internet Archive and the Software Preservation Network (SPN) support proposed revisions to the US Copyright Office electronic deposit rules as an important bulwark against vanishing culture….”

Meta’s AI research head wants open source licensing to change – The Verge

“In July, Meta released its large language model Llama 2 relatively openly and for free, a stark contrast to its biggest competitors. But in the world of open-source software, some still see the company’s openness with an asterisk….”

Transforming health and well?being through publishing computable biomedical knowledge (CBK) – Koru – 2023 – Learning Health Systems – Wiley Online Library

Abstract:  Computable biomedical knowledge artifacts (CBKs) are software programs that transform input data into practical output. CBKs are expected to play a critical role in the future of learning health systems. While there has been rapid growth in the development of CBKs, broad adoption is hampered by limited verification, documentation, and dissemination channels. To address these issues, the Learning Health Systems journal created a track dedicated to publishing CBKs through a peer-review process. Peer review of CBKs should improve reproducibility, reuse, trust, and recognition in biomedical fields, contributing to learning health systems. This special issue introduces the CBK track with four manuscripts reporting a functioning CBK, and another four manuscripts tackling methodological, policy, deployment, and platform issues related to fostering a healthy ecosystem for CBKs. It is our hope that the potential of CBKs exemplified and highlighted by these quality publications will encourage scientists within learning health systems and related biomedical fields to engage with this new form of scientific discourse.

 

Journal Production Guidance for Software and Data Citations | Scientific Data

Abstract:  Software and data citation are emerging best practices in scholarly communication. This article provides structured guidance to the academic publishing community on how to implement software and data citation in publishing workflows. These best practices support the verifiability and reproducibility of academic and scientific results, sharing and reuse of valuable data and software tools, and attribution to the creators of the software and data. While data citation is increasingly well-established, software citation is rapidly maturing. Software is now recognized as a key research result and resource, requiring the same level of transparency, accessibility, and disclosure as data. Software and data that support academic or scientific results should be preserved and shared in scientific repositories that support these digital object types for discovery, transparency, and use by other researchers. These goals can be supported by citing these products in the Reference Section of articles and effectively associating them to the software and data preserved in scientific repositories. Publishers need to markup these references in a specific way to enable downstream processes.

How Open Science Unlocks Scientific Details: A Journey of Discovery – Open and Universal Science (OPUS) Project

“By fostering transparency, collaboration, and accessibility, Open Science has unleashed the potential for researchers to delve deeper into the heart of scientific phenomena. In this article, we will explore how Open Science is instrumental in unraveling scientific intricacies and ushering in a new era of discovery….”

PKP Celebrates Software Freedom Day and 25 years of FOSS – Public Knowledge Project

“This September 16th, 2023, is Software Freedom Day, an annual world-wide celebration coordinated by the Digital Freedom Foundation to raise awareness of what it means to use free software and to encourage its use.

At the same time, PKP celebrates a quarter of a century developing and maintaining free and open software with the scholarly publishing community. Since its very beginnings, inspired by the inability to share research resources publicly and openly, PKP has decidedly taken action to distribute its applications freely.

In this blog post, PKP joins in on the celebrations, and takes a moment to share a key message: PKP is and always will be dedicated to the development of free software….”

ADORE.software is ready for signing – ADORE.software

“We are pleased to announce that Version 1.0 of the Amsterdam Declaration on Funding Research Software Sustainability (ADORE.software) is now released. ADORE.software is the first step towards formalising, on a global level, the basic principles and recommendations related to funding the sustainability of research software, including the people needed to achieve this goal. Now that Version 1.0 has been released, this means that funding organisations that support research software, and/or the people who develop and maintain it, are now invited to formally sign ADORE.software. 

The declaration was initiated in November 2022 by the Research Software Alliance and Netherlands eScience Center who organised the International Funders Workshop: The Future of Research Software which focused on creating the first draft of the declaration. Since the workshop, the research software community around the world, including members of the combined Research Data Alliance and Research Software Funders Forum provided input towards this release of the declaration….”

CISA Releases its Open Source Software Security Roadmap

Today, CISA released an Open Source Software Security Roadmap to lay out—in alignment with the National Cybersecurity Strategy and the CISA Cybersecurity Strategic Plan—how we will partner with federal agencies, open source software (OSS) consumers, and the OSS community, to secure OSS infrastructure. To that end, the roadmap details four key goals:

Job Posting: pyOpenSci is Hiring a Community Manager – pyOpenSci

“pyOpenSci is accepting applications for a Community Manager. The Community Manager supports growth and development of an inclusive pyOpenSci community. Our vibrant community is dedicated to supporting high quality Python open source software that drives open science.”

FAIR Principles for Research Software Become More Visible – MPDL

“The conscious use of research software is becoming increasingly important. The Max Planck Digital Library supports scientists in this. To this end, the MPDL has written an application for software management plans (SMP). It can be used to organize projects with research software in the open-source application RDMO. This application has now been revised and handed over to the RDMO community.

At the same time, the MPDL team has written an additional application to look at the own software according to the FAIR principles for research software (FAIR4RS). This complements the work with an SMP and enables scientists to check the FAIRness of their own code. In addition to quality management, this can, i.e. also be used for third-party funding applications.”

[2308.14953] An Open Community-Driven Model For Sustainable Research Software: Sustainable Research Software Institute

Abstract:  Research software plays a crucial role in advancing scientific knowledge, but ensuring its sustainability, maintainability, and long-term viability is an ongoing challenge. To address these concerns, the Sustainable Research Software Institute (SRSI) Model presents a comprehensive framework designed to promote sustainable practices in the research software community. This white paper provides an in-depth overview of the SRSI Model, outlining its objectives, services, funding mechanisms, collaborations, and the significant potential impact it could have on the research software community. It explores the wide range of services offered, diverse funding sources, extensive collaboration opportunities, and the transformative influence of the SRSI Model on the research software landscape