2011 NASA Open Source Summit - Terry Fong
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The document discusses open source software developed at NASA from the perspective of a practitioner. It provides examples of several open source projects developed at NASA's Ames Research Center, including Vision Workbench, GeoCam, the Neo-Geography Toolkit, RAPID, RoverSW, and a vehicle detection challenge. It describes benefits of open source including transparency, participation, and collaboration. However, it also notes potential bottlenecks in NASA's open source release process regarding copyright assignment, export control review, external library licenses, and compliance standards. It proposes models for ongoing open source development and engaging external communities to help address these challenges.
2011 NASA Open Source Summit - Terry Fong
- 1. Open Source at NASA A practitioners perspective Terry Fong Intelligent Robotics Group NASA Ames Research Center terry.fong@nasa.gov irg.arc.nasa.gov Open Source at NASA A practitioners perspective 1
- 2. Why is Open Source good for NASA? More transparent ≒ Enables the public to better understand what software NASA needs to fulfill its mission & activities ≒ Enables the public to better understand how taxpayer dollars are being used More participatory ≒ Enables the public to assist in NASA software development ≒ Enables students, scientists, the general public, etc. to contribute their expertise and skills More collaborative ≒ Enables NASA to transfer technology efficiently and rapidly ≒ Enables NASA to more easily partner and work with others Open Source at NASA A practitioners perspective 2
- 3. IRG Open Source Software Vision GeoCam Workbench Vehicle RoverSW Detection Neo Geography RAPID Toolkit Open Source at NASA A practitioners perspective 3
- 4. Vision Workbench (2006) Overview ≒ Modular, extensible, C++ computer vision framework ≒ Rapid development and flexible, multi-platform (Linux, OS-X, Win32) ≒ Supports science analysis, robot perception, image stitching, etc. Open Source at NASA A practitioners perspective 4
- 5. Vision Workbench (2006) Developers ≒ Government: NASA Ames Intelligent Systems Division ≒ Prime Contractor: QSS Group, Inc. ≒ University: Carnegie Mellon / Silicon Valley ≒ Non-Profit: Research Institute for Advanced Computer Science Key points ≒ Software library (continuous release / hosted on GitHub) ≒ Rapid, on-going development ≒ Supports numerous collaborations (funded & informal), interns, etc. ≒ Requires several external, open source libraries (OS licenses: Boost, MIT, BSD-like) ≒ Enhanced functionality with additional open source libraries (OS licenses: zlib/png, SGI, GPL2, etc.) Open Source at NASA A practitioners perspective 5
- 6. GeoCam (2007) Open Source at NASA A practitioners perspective 6
- 7. GeoCam (2007) Developers ≒ Government: NASA Ames Intelligent Systems Division ≒ University: Carnegie Mellon / Silicon Valley ≒ Internship program: Education Associates Key points ≒ Software suite: smartphone apps, Web UIs, server software, tools (continuous release / hosted on GitHub) ≒ Rapid, on-going development ≒ Supports developers, first responders, citizen groups, etc. ≒ Requires several external, open source libraries (OS licenses: BSD, BSD-like, MIT, NOSA) ≒ Enhanced functionality with additional open source libraries (OS licenses: Apache 2, BSD-like, LGPL3, MIT) Open Source at NASA A practitioners perspective 7
- 8. Neo-Geography Toolkit (2009) Overview ≒ Tools for geospatial data processing, automated map making, etc. ≒ Supports large-scale data (10-100 TB), cloud & super computing ≒ Import / export to geo-browsers & OGC standards (Web services) Open Source at NASA A practitioners perspective 8
- 9. NGT for Moon / Mars in Google Earth Open Source at NASA A practitioners perspective 9
- 10. Neo-Geography Toolkit (2009) Developers ≒ Government: NASA Ames Intelligent Systems Division ≒ Prime Contractor: SGT, Inc. ≒ University: Carnegie Mellon / Silicon Valley ≒ Internship program: Education Associates Key points ≒ Software suite: libraries, processing pipelines & tools (continuous release / hosted on GitHub) ≒ Rapid, on-going development ≒ Supports numerous collaborations (funded & informal), interns, etc. ≒ Requires several external, open source libraries (OS licenses: Apache 2, BSD, GPL 3, ISIS 3, LGPL 2.1, MIT, NOSA) Open Source at NASA A practitioners perspective 10
- 11. RAPID (2009) Overview ≒ Robot Application Programming Interface Delegate ≒ Standardized programming interface (API) for robot software ≒ Messaging & data distribution for NASA robots & user interfaces RAPID RAPID RAPID API API Robot Workbench Middleware Bridge Open Source at NASA A practitioners perspective 11
- 12. RAPID (2009) Developers ≒ Government: NASA Ames (Code TI) & Johnson (Code ER) ≒ Prime Contractor: SGT, Inc. ≒ Subcontractor: TRACLabs, Inc. ≒ Non-Profit: Research Institute for Advanced Computer Science Key points ≒ Software suite: libraries, user interface, reference implementation (hosted on SourceForge) ≒ Facilitates basic research & collaboration worldwide (does not require SUA / other agreement that would be extremely difficult to execute) ≒ De-facto NASA robotics open standard Open Source at NASA A practitioners perspective 12
- 13. RoverSW (2010) Overview ≒ Service-oriented robotics software architecture ≒ Designed for NASA-relevant research robots ≒ Software framework + composable modules Open Source at NASA A practitioners perspective 13
- 14. RoverSW on the K10 Planetary Rover VIDEO Open Source at NASA A practitioners perspective 14
- 15. RoverSW (2010) Developers ≒ Government: NASA Ames Intelligent Systems Division ≒ Prime Contractor: SGT, Inc. ≒ University: Carnegie Mellon / Silicon Valley ≒ Non-Profit: Research Institute for Advanced Computer Science Key points ≒ Software library ≒ Facilitates collaboration with others worldwide & interns ≒ Enables third-parties (e.g., small businesses) to test without SUA ≒ Requires several external, open source libraries (OS licenses: BSD, BSD-like, LGPL 2.1 & 3, MIT, NOSA) ≒ Enhanced functionality with additional open source libraries (OS licenses: BSD-like, NOSA) Open Source at NASA A practitioners perspective 15
- 16. NTL Vehicle Detection (2011) NASA Tournament Labs (NTL) ≒ Collaboration between NASA, Harvard Business School & TopCoder ≒ Crowd-source NASA software through programming contests ≒ Winning solutions will be released as NASA open source Vehicle Detection Challenge ≒ First contest: three-weeks (Jan 28-Feb 18, 2011) ≒ Automatically classify aerial images that contain a vehicle ≒ 139 competitors from around the world http://community.topcoder.com/ntl Open Source at NASA A practitioners perspective 16
- 17. IRG Open Source Software Common characteristics ≒ Developed by multi-org workforce, not just civil servants Have to consider contract clauses & other concerns (Bahy-Dole rights) ≒ On-going, rapid development Intermittent point releases are not appropriate ≒ Intended to support & facilitate collaboration Must be easy to adopt (e.g., licensing should not get in the way !) Must be easy to access (e.g., hosted on popular sites, not NASA site !) ≒ Wide range of users (individuals, companies, non-profits, etc.) Barrier to entry must be as low as possible (licensing, access, paperwork) ≒ Built upon other open source libraries May restrict how software is released or what license is used Open Source at NASA A practitioners perspective 17
- 18. Open Source Release Process* * From a developers perspective Fill-out release forms Submit Release meeting Release approved р NF1679 (invention disclosure) release р SW briefing DEVELOPER р Software release request forms р Q&A р List of external libraries (and their licenses) р NPR 7150.2 matrix Month 1 2 3 4 5 ≒≒ AUTHORITY SOFTWARE Initial reviews Final reviews RELEASE р Export review р External library licenses р Collect copyright assignments р etc. Open Source at NASA A practitioners perspective 18
- 19. Lessons Learned: Potential Bottlenecks Copyright assignment ≒ Multi-org workforce: civil servants, contractors, interns, universities ≒ Can take long if non-NASA organizations unfamiliar with process Export control ≒ Can take long if software is difficult to categorize ≒ Can take long if software has possible ITAR characteristics External licenses ≒ Must carefully distinguish between "required" and "optional ≒ Review can take long (no central database of reviewed licenses) 508 compliance ≒ NASA workforce (especially researchers) not trained for ensuring this SE compliance ≒ Open source software is not (usually) designed with this in mind (can be at odds with agile development methods ) Open Source at NASA A practitioners perspective 19
- 20. Towards Open Source Development What makes NASA different ? ≒ Taxpayer-funded federal institution ≒ Culture (engineering driven, minimize risk, etc.) ≒ Mixed workforce (civil servants, contractors, etc.) ≒ Unique, highly-specialized software ≒ Non-competition with commercial sector Open Source at NASA A practitioners perspective 20
- 21. Development Use Cases Point release ≒ Infrequent release of completed software (traditional model) ≒ Internal development by NASA workforce Continuous release ≒ On-going, frequent release of software under development ≒ Done only within well-defined bounds and with periodic review ≒ Internal development by NASA workforce Community development ≒ On-going, joint development to common code base ≒ NASA workforce (official duties) & volunteers Crowd-sourcing ≒ Rapid development at hackathons ≒ Result of programming contests (e.g., NASA Tournament Labs) ≒ May / may not have NASA workforce involved (official duties) Open Source at NASA A practitioners perspective 21
- 22. (Some) Issues How can we improve the NASA OS release process? ≒ How to make it faster & more efficient? ≒ How to make it more consistent across the agency? ≒ How to make it easier for practitioners? How can we improve licensing? ≒ Under what circumstances is NOSA (still) useful? ≒ What is needed for NASA to be able to use a suite of licenses (Apache 2, GPL 3, etc.) for release? How can NASA engage in community development? ≒ What is needed for third-party contributions? ≒ What is needed for crowd-sourcing? ≒ What can we do in the near-term? Open Source at NASA A practitioners perspective 22
- 23. Questions? Intelligent Robotics Group Intelligent Systems Division NASA Ames Research Center irg.arc.nasa.gov Open Source at NASA A practitioners perspective 23