Experiences Developing Tools for Scientific Communities in the Apache Software Foundation: Beyond Open Source

Abstract

Science Gateways provide Web-based environments for scientists and students to perform computational experiments online via Web interfaces using Web services and computational workflows. Gateways rely on open source software, and many gateway developers have taken the extras step to make their own software open source, using tools like SourceForge, Github, and Google Code to make their codes available, easy to find, and open licensed. However, we believe there are important steps that should be taken to go beyond basic open source to address requirements for building open software communities. In addition to licensing and support tools, open communities must have open processes for making design decisions, accepting code contributions, adding new project members, reporting and resolving problems, and making well-packaged and properly licensed software releases. The Apache Software Foundation provides the infrastructure and mentoring experience to help open source communities address these project governance issues. Additionally, Apache has an interesting requirements (such as developer diversity) that are designed to emphasize the neutrality of the code base (encouraging competitors to have a safe place to cooperate), help sustain their projects through leadership turnover and funding cycles. In this talk I present our group's efforts to convert two major pieces of the Open Gateway Computing Environments project, the Gadget Container and the Workflow Suite, into Apache Rave and Apache Airavata incubators, respectively. I discuss the implications of the Apache model, both positive and negative, on the science gateway community and cyberinfrastructure generally.