Open Source Research Software

Abstract

Reports on the need to make make software open source. It should be both archived for reproducibility and actively maintained for reusability. In computational and computer science, research software is a central asset for development activities. For good scientific practice, the resulting research software should be open source. Established open source software licenses provide sufficient options for granting permissions such that it should be the rare exception to keep research software closed. Proper engineering is required for obtaining reusable and sustainable research software. This way, software engineering methods may improve research in other disciplines. However, research in software engineering and computer science itself will also benefit when programs are reused. To study the state of the art in this field, we analyzed research software publishing practices in computer and computational science and observed significant differences: computational science emphasizes reproducibility, while computer science emphasizes reuse.