[Esip-preserve] Stewardship Best Practices

Wed Oct 6 12:21:56 EDT 2010

I agree the process to release the software is complicated even though the NASA's Earth Science Data Policy is quite clear about the release of source code. See http://science.nasa.gov/earth-science/earth-science-data/data-information-policy/ - fourth bullet in the bulletized list.

Rama.

************************************************

H. K. "Rama" Ramapriyan

Assistant Project Manager, ESDIS Project, Code 423

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

Phone: (301) 614-5356; FAX: (301)-614-5267; Cell: (240)678-0398

************************************************

-----Original Message-----
From: esip-preserve-bounces at lists.esipfed.org [mailto:esip-preserve-bounces at lists.esipfed.org] On Behalf Of alicebarkstrom at frontier.com
Sent: Wednesday, October 06, 2010 10:26 AM
To: Lynnes, Christopher S. (GSFC-6102)
Cc: ESIP Preservation cluster
Subject: Re: [Esip-preserve] Stewardship Best Practices

I suspect getting NOAA to agree would be even

more difficult than NASA.  As I recall, the CIO's

office in NESDIS didn't allow release of read

software for files.  Also, at least for NASA EOS

data, I believe the policy dictated that source

code had to be made available to "legitimate"

requestors.  Thus, NOAA has obtained code from

most of the EOS investigations of interest for

climate and passed that code on to contractors

such as Northrup-Grumman for inclusion in the

processing of data for NPP and whatever NPOESS

has become.

Bruce B.

----- Original Message -----

From: "Christopher S. Lynnes (GSFC-6102)" <christopher.s.lynnes at nasa.gov>

To: "Curt Tilmes (GSFC-6145)" <curt.tilmes at nasa.gov>

Cc: "ESIP Preservation cluster" <esip-preserve at rtpnet.org>

Sent: Wednesday, October 6, 2010 9:01:22 AM

Subject: Re: [Esip-preserve] Stewardship Best Practices

On Oct 6, 2010, at 7:25 AM, Curt Tilmes wrote:

> Looking over this a bit:

>

> http://wiki.esipfed.org/index.php/Interagency_Data_Stewardship/Principles

>

> Here are some, perhaps controversial, proposals for addition:

>

> Data Creators:

>

> will release all software used in the processing of data used in

> scientific research. Even if the rights to use that software are

> restricted it should at least be available for inspection.

You mean the source code here, right?

While I applaud the intent, I can say (from personal experience) that navigating the legal / procedural labyrinth for any source code release is so time-consuming that this is currently impractical in many cases.

To really make this workable, it would be helpful to get some kind of agency-level exemption to some of the standard release requirements for science processing code. A process similar to the NASA Document Availability Authorization would be more workable.

I wonder, is this as much an issue in the other agencies, like NOAA, USGS and EPA?

--

Dr. Christopher Lynnes    NASA/GSFC, Code 610.2, Greenbelt, MD 20771

Phone: 301-614-5185

_______________________________________________

Esip-preserve mailing list

Esip-preserve at lists.esipfed.org

http://www.lists.esipfed.org/mailman/listinfo/esip-preserve

_______________________________________________

Esip-preserve mailing list

Esip-preserve at lists.esipfed.org

http://www.lists.esipfed.org/mailman/listinfo/esip-preserve
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://www.lists.esipfed.org/pipermail/esip-preserve/attachments/20101006/78811795/attachment.html>