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Eight Strategies for Revolutionizing the Open Geoscience Ecosystem
- Publisher: European Association of Geoscientists & Engineers
- Source: Conference Proceedings, 78th EAGE Conference and Exhibition 2016, May 2016, Volume 2016, p.1 - 4
Abstract
The open source geoscience software scene is reasonably healthy. A quick survey of the core projects — Madagascar, OpendTect, SU, and so on — suggests that they continue to progress their technology, and their user bases are growing. There’s also progress on the fringe, with new experiments in open source software, new open access content from the SEG and others, and new activity around open collaboration. But at its core, our science has a long, long way to go: reproducibility is simply not yet valued in geoscience. For example, Geophysics publishes the source code for only about two papers every year, which is less than 1%.
This paper reviews some of the fringe activities that I am aware of or involved in, highlighting those that seem to have good traction. Rather than just listing them, I segment them into eight themes. Each theme suggests a strategy for cementing and accelerating the progress that the open source community has made. As we face months, perhaps years, of reduced economic activity in the petroleum industry, it remains possible that what is undoubtedly a threat to the commercial software industry, can be an opportunity for the progress of geoscience.