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 Date: 5/3/19, 12:47 PM

To: Discussion of Numerical Python

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 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 mailto:ralf.gommers@gmail.com> wrote:

On Fri, May 3, 2019 at 3:49 AM Stephen Waterbury 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 mailto:ralf.gommers@gmail.com> wrote:

...

On Sat, Apr 20, 2019 at 12:41 PM Ralf Gommers mailto:ralf.gommers@gmail.com> wrote:

On Thu, Apr 18, 2019 at 10:03 PM Joe Harrington 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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