Just to keep people in the loop, Ralf and I are in discussion with
people at NASA HQ about a funding stream for core development. Ralf has
put together a short description of the development and funding model (5
core projects, 10-20 core developers each, nearly all volunteer now, how
NumFOCUS fits in, what we hope to establish from NASA vs. from other
agencies, industry, other countries' science entities, etc.). That will
circulate within the agency, to see what can be scraped together.
Program managers in NASA's Science Mission Directorate (SMD) gave
quite-positive feedback on how vital the Python ecosystem is to NASA's
mission. We're emphasizing the need for both new functionality and
maintenance (e.g., docs, web site, bug fixing). If this is ultimately
successful, it can be a model for approaching other agencies in the US
and elsewhere.
To Steve's point, regarding how hard it is for Civil Servants to
contribute to OSS (due to NASA's lengthy internal review process for
releasing software), this problem was clearly called out in the
Academies report. We proposed some solutions to streamline things.
What's needed now is for NASA Civil Servants to take that report and the
relevant white papers (cited in the report and posted online) to their
center's senior management, and to NASA HQ, and similarly for others in
government agencies. You may wish to start from NASA's (or your
agency's) mission, which includes sharing technology openly to boost the
economy, and how you are encountering unreasonable barriers to that
goal. This is mandated by the National Air and Space Act of 1958.
For example, there is little reason to conduct an export-control review
with lawyers looking at code emerging from a group that has nothing to
do with anything near an export-controlled topic. Universities and
contractors are subject to the same export-control laws as NASA, and
they have not routinely conducted similar reviews of every line of code
released. This has not led to a pattern of export violations. (Whether
there is any benefit at all to the export control laws as applied to
software is debatable, since it's usually easy for coders elsewhere to
write the same codes, but the law is the law.)
--jh--
On 5/3/19 12:48 PM, numpy-discussion-request@python.org wrote:
Subject:
Re: [Numpy-discussion] grant proposal for core scientific Python
projects (rejected)
From:
Mark Mikofski <mikofski@berkeley.edu>
Date:
5/3/19, 12:47 PM
To:
Discussion of Numerical Python <numpy-discussion@python.org>
Sorry, that last attachment was just a slide show of the topic 3
recording, here is the full funding opportunity announcement - letter
with 200 word abstract are due May 7th
On Fri, May 3, 2019 at 8:40 AM Mark Mikofski <mikofski@berkeley.edu
<mailto:mikofski@berkeley.edu>> wrote:
Hi Ralf, and others,
Sorry for the late notice, but there is are several funding
opportunities in solar, including one for $350,000 to develop open
source software to lower soft costs of solar.
https://eere-exchange.energy.gov/#FoaId45eda43a-e826-4481-ae7a-cc6e8ed4fdae
see topic 3.4 specifically in attached PDF - also note to view the
recording the password is "*Setofoa2019"* it's about 30 minutes long.
I know that this is a extremely niche, but as a few others have
said, [the DOE] grants tend to be very specific, but perhaps we
can creatively think of ways to channel funds to NumPy and SciPy.
Also there is a cost share that is typically 20%, which would be a
non-starter for volunteer projects.
But here's an idea, perhaps partnering with a company, like mine
(DNV GL) who is applying for the grant, and who uses NumPy,and
could pay the cost share, and then we collaborate on something
that is required to complete the project, which is contributed to
NumPy (or SciPy) - but we would have to figure what we could align on.
Seems like NumFOCUS, Quantsight, or some other company in the OSS
space could figure out ways to help connect companies, OSS
projects, and funding opportunities like these, where there's a
possibility of alignment and mutual benefit?
The full list of funding opportunities is here:
https://eere-exchange.energy.gov/
Best Regards,
Mark
On Thu, May 2, 2019 at 11:52 PM Ralf Gommers
<ralf.gommers@gmail.com <mailto:ralf.gommers@gmail.com>> wrote:
On Fri, May 3, 2019 at 3:49 AM Stephen Waterbury
<waterbug@pangalactic.us <mailto:waterbug@pangalactic.us>> wrote:
P.S. If anyone wants to continue this discussion at SciPy
2019,
I will be there (on my own nickel! ;) ...
Thanks for the input Stephen, and looking forward to see you
at SciPy'19!
Ralf
Steve
On 5/2/19 9:45 PM, Stephen Waterbury wrote:
I am a NASA pythonista (for 20+ years ;), but you can now
say you know
yet another person at NASA who has no idea this even
exists ... :)
Not only do I not know of that, but I know of NASA
policies that make
it very difficult for NASA civil servants to contribute
to open source
projects -- quite hypocritical, given the amount of open
source
code that NASA (like all other large organizations)
depends critically
on, but it's a fact.
Cheers,
Steve Waterbury
(CLEARLY **NOT** SPEAKING IN ANY OFFICIAL CAPACITY FOR
NASA OR
THE U.S. GOVERNMENT AS A WHOLE! Hence the personal email
address. :)
On 5/2/19 9:31 PM, Chris Barker - NOAA Federal wrote:
Sounds like this is a NASA specific thing, in which
case, I guess someone at NASA would need to step up.
I’m afraid I know no pythonistas at NASA.
But I’ll poke around NOAA to see if there’s anything
similar.
-CHB
On Apr 25, 2019, at 1:04 PM, Ralf Gommers
<ralf.gommers@gmail.com <mailto:ralf.gommers@gmail.com>>
wrote:
On Sat, Apr 20, 2019 at 12:41 PM Ralf Gommers
<ralf.gommers@gmail.com
<mailto:ralf.gommers@gmail.com>> wrote:
On Thu, Apr 18, 2019 at 10:03 PM Joe Harrington
<jh@physics.ucf.edu <mailto:jh@physics.ucf.edu>> wrote:
3. There's such a thing as a share-in-savings
contract at NASA, in which
you calculate a savings, such as from avoided
costs of licensing IDL or
Matlab, and say you'll develop a replacement
for that product that costs
less, in exchange for a portion of the savings.
These are rare and few
people know about them, but one presenter to
the committee did discuss
them and thought they'd be appropriate. I've
always felt that we could
get a chunk of change this way, and was
surprised to find that the
approach exists and has a name. About 3 of 4
people I talk to at NASA
have no idea this even exists, though, and I
haven't pursued it to its
logical end to see if it's viable.
I've heard of these. Definitely worth looking into.
It seems to be hard to find any information about these
share-in-savings contracts. The closest thing I found
is this:
https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2018/06/22/2018-13463/nasa-federal...
It is called "Shared Savings" there, and was replaced
last year by something called "Value Engineering Change
Proposal". If anyone can comment on whether that's the
same thing as Joe meant and whether this is worth
following up on, that would be very helpful.
Cheers,
Ralf
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