# Presentation: 946114

## Reuse Working Group

- Co-chairs:
- Robert Wolfe, NASA GSFC
- Vic Delnore, NASA LRC
- 4th Earth Science Data Systems Working Group Meeting
- Baltimore, MD
- October 25 - 27, 2005

## Agenda

- Activities & Accomplishments
- Summary of Activities
- Recommendations to Headquarters
- Policy
- Reuse Survey
- Reuse Portal
- Trade Study
- Breakout Session Agenda

## Working Group Members 2005

## 2005 Activities Summary

- Conducted monthly full working group telecons & weekly team telecons
- Presented posters
- ESIP Federation (January 2005, DC)
- ESIP Federation (June 2005, San Diego)
- AGU (May 2005, New Orleans)
- Abstracts also accepted for December 2005 AGU
- Workshop at August ESIP Federation meeting
- Presented reuse recommendations to NASA HQ
- Developed policy recommendations
- Conducted 2nd phase of reuse survey
- Developed reuse portal
- Conducted trade study of reuse catalogs & repositories

## Recommendations to Headquarters

## Recommendations to Headquarters

- Policy Recommendations
- NASA should develop standard language for use in future procurement and grant notices that will encourage more software reuse
- NASA should adopt a policy of releasing its Earth science software to the community using the NASA Open Source Agreement
- Enabling Systems Recommendations
- NASA should establish a Web-based information portal for the sharing and dissemination of information about software reuse practices for the Earth science community
- NASA should establish a system to facilitate the cataloging and distribution of reusable assets for the Earth science community

## NASA HQ Response

- Policy Recommendation 1
- Propose that nascent language developed for the REASoN CAs and draft system software policy be a starting point
- Reuse WG has the expertise to develop draft language and provide to HQ (i.e., Martha Maiden– Data Systems Program Executive)
- Data Systems Program Executive will work with NASA Legal to finalize appropriate language
- Upon concurrence by Headquarters SMD Management, appropriate language will be included in ROSES (Earth Science) announcements
- Policy Recommendation 2
- For system software, NASA considers Open Source as one of a number of solutions to achieve effective lifecycle costs and appropriate design.  Alternatively NASA may opt to assign copyright to NASA or it designee to foster commercial development.
- REASoN CA Data Rights (slide 8) states that proposals must document intent to commercialize system software upfront or software can be made available without restriction by NASA
- HQ agrees that the process for release software to open source should be improved and applauds the Reuse WG
- NASA seeks recommendation from the Reuse WG on how to facilitate and release software for Open Source

## NASA HQ Response

- Enabling Systems Recommendation 1
- Encourage the continued development of the _[http://](http://softwarereuse.nasa.gov/)__[softwarereuse.nasa.gov](http://softwarereuse.nasa.gov/)_ web site
- Undertake a trade study to understand the roles of NASA Open Source Agreement web site (_[http://](http://opensource.arc.nasa.gov/)__[opensource.arc.nasa.gov](http://opensource.arc.nasa.gov/)_), the role of GCMD in cataloging data services, and any other related NASA software sites
- Enabling Systems Recommendation 2
- HQ thinks such a recommendation is premature and needs to await the results of a trade study concerning the establishment of a reuse portal (Enabling System 1)

## Policy

## Policy Activities

- Provided feedback to Headquarters on “Draft Policy for System Software Acquisition for NASA Data System Solicitation”
- Provided feedback to Headquarters on proposed changes to NPD 2210.1B (External Release of NASA Software)
- Developed draft language for future grant / procurement RFPs that addresses software reuse and open source software
- for possible inclusion in ROSES (Earth Science) announcements
- Liaison with Office of Technology Transfer

## Reuse Survey

## Reuse Survey

- Initially distributed in 2004 to working group members and .gov folks only (awaiting OMB approval for wider distribution)
- First phase survey closed on July 6, 2004
- Used Web-based survey tool (Vanguard VistaTM)
- Simple 1 to 5 response scale
- Not important / Somewhat Important / Very important
- Never / Sometimes / Very Often
- Four parts
- Part 1: Information about respondent
- Part 2: Recent reuse experiences
- Part 3: Recent reusability experiences
- Part 4: Community Needs

## Reuse Survey 2005

- OMB approval obtained 01/04/2005 (Approval No. 2700-0117)
- Approximately 3000 invitations issued
- Second phase survey closed on July 26, 2005
- Larger sample size than 2004 - 100 responses
- More diverse set of respondents (includes non-government)

- NASA
- 46%

- Other Government Agency - 14%

- University / Academia
- 23%

- Commercial Organization
- 14%

- Other
- 3%

## Technical Environment

- Which Operating System(s) do you currently use or plan to use... ?

- Which programming language(s) do you currently use or plan to use... ?

## Survey Findings

- Confirms many of the findings of 2004 survey
- Some minor differences but generally not statistically significant
- Saving time is still ranked as the primary motivation for reuse

- Saving time - 2004 Results

- Saving time - 2005 Results

## Survey Findings - Increasing the Level of Reuse

**Survey Findings - Increasing the Level of Reuse**

- Earth science catalog / repository seen as most important factor for increasing the level of reuse
- 69% rated as important or very important
- Education/guidance on reuse also rated highly
- 59% rated as important or very important
- Standardized support policy for reused software (not shown) also seen as important

**Earth science catalog/repository for reusable artifacts**

**Education/guidance on reuse**

## Reuse Portal

## Reuse Portal Pilot Site  softwarereuse.nasa.gov

- The reuse portal is being developed to:
- Raise awareness of software reuse within the Earth science community,
- Establish a platform for community members to share/exchange resources with each other,
- Be the gateway for reuse information relevant to the community,
- Make access to reuse resources easier, and
- Become the major starting site for reuse within the community

## Reuse Portal

- Initial prototype of the portal created using Microsoft SharePoint
- Live version uses Plone
- Open source content management system, running on Linux
- Update content using a simple browser based interface
- NASA Portal Affinity - consistent NASA look and feel
- First web site to use the new      DSWG server (kathy.gsfc.nasa.gov)

- SharePoint Prototype

- Zope Management interface for Plone

- Site content management using Plone

## Portal Content Status

**Portal Content Status**

- Home/News
- latest news and information
- Reusable Assets
- links to various catalogs (e.g., GCMD, OTT Open Source)
- Open Source
- Funding Opportunities
- information about funding opportunities for reuse

- Resources                (overall)
- Events
- Featured Projects
- Library (working group documents)
- Technology Hotspots
- External Resources (links to external books and papers)

## Trade Study

## Trade Study Background

- Enabling Systems Recommendations
- NASA should establish a system to facilitate the cataloging and distribution of reusable assets for the Earth science community
- NASA Headquarters tasked the Working Group to look at the roles of the GCMD, Open Source Agreement site, and other sites in serving the community and meeting reuse needs.
- Ensure that there are no existing systems that already fulfill the role proposed by the reuse working group for a reuse enablement system

## Reuse Enablement System Requirements

- Specific functional requirements identified from use cases for the system include:
- Register User
- Contribute/Update Assets
- System Feedback
- Automatic Notifications
- Discovering Assets
- Register Asset Usage
- Asset Review
- Monitoring Feedback
- Workflow Management
- Capture Asset Needs
- Catalog or Repository

- Additional functional requirements include:
- Minimal Operation Support
- Performance
- Security
- Technology
- Important non-functional requirements include:
- Domain (Earth science focus)
- Type of assets provided (should include small sized components)

- Requirements developed by the 2004 Support & Enablement sub-team

## NASA Systems Summary

- Note: Evaluations are based on how well the systems meet the reuse enablement system requirements not how well the systems perform their primary role.

## Non-NASA Systems Summary

## Trade Study Conclusions

- None of the existing sites fulfill the role of a software repository for the Earth science community.
- None of the systems provide the capabilities needed to function as a reuse enablement system.
- Typical shortcomings of existing systems include the following:
- Not meeting enough of the critical functional requirements
- Not focusing on the Earth science domain
- Not targeting software developers as the primary audience
- Not providing the type of small-sized assets that are most desired by the community of Earth science software developers for reuse purposes
- A new catalog/repository system is needed to encourage and better enable software reuse within the community of Earth science software developers.
- Some collaboration with existing systems may be possible, but existing systems alone cannot meet the needs of this community.

## Reuse Breakout Sessions

## Breakout Session Agenda

## Day 1 Agenda

- Introduction / summary – Robert / Vic / Steve
- Reuse survey report - Steve
- Trade study report - Jim
- Reuse enablement system requirements recap – Steve / Nancy
- Review RES use cases – Steve / Nancy / All
- RES requirements development planning - All
- Joint breakout session planning - Shahin

## Day 2 Agenda 

- Joint breakout – Reuse, Technology Infusion, Standards
- Reuse portal functionality - Ryan
- Reuse portal recap
- Reuse portal content maintenance
- Reuse portal management - Bob
- Content submission criteria
- Content submission and approval process
- Assign content management coordinators