NASA and open-source software.

NASA, Notional Aeronautics and Space Administration, can be considered as one of the largest US government funded research institutes. As all research institutes at this moment there is a large amount of open-source software involved. A large number of there researchers are using Linux on there computers and a large number of there servers are running on Linux.

Also a lot of the researchers at NASA are giving back open-source software and enhancements to the open-source community. Also they have some projects running completely devoted to open-source. For example the “World Wind” project which is a open-source project. This project is licensed under “NASA OPEN SOURCE AGREEMENT VERSION 1.3”

The big advantage of open-source at NASA is that the community can tap into the knowledge of NASA and there are some very nice projects you can download and participate in. Some good places to take a look are for example the “Ames Research Center” or the “Goddard Space Flight Center, Office of Technology Transfer”. Also a good place to take a first look is at this location.

Here you can find links to projects like:

ACE: aCe (Architecture Adaptive Computing Environment) is a project to develop a programming environment that can be supported on all computing architectures.

ECHO:The EOS ClearingHOuse (ECHO) is an enabling framework being built by NASA's Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS) Project to allow different data systems and services to work together. ECHO is an open system based on Extensible Markup Language (XML) and Web Service technologies; its Application Program Interfaces (APIs) are published for use by the science community to exchange data, information, and services.

OSAL: The Operating System Abstraction Layer is a small software library that isolates embedded system software from a real time operating system. The project includes an Operating System Application Program Interface (API), a Hardware Abstraction Layer API, implementations for several real time and desktop operating systems, and a project build system.

Livingstone2: Livingstone2 is a reusable artificial intelligence (AI) software system designed to assist spacecraft, life support systems, chemical plants or other complex systems in operating robustly with minimal human supervision, even in the face of hardware failures or unexpected events.

CODE: CODE is a software framework for control and observation in distributed environments. This framework enables the observation of distributed resources, services, and applications. Observations are made by modular components called sensors, the information observed is encapsulated as events, and these events are transmitted from where they are produced to whoever wants to consume them using an event management framework. Further, the CODE framework allows people or agents to control a distributed system by allowing them to take actions on remote systems using modular components called actors.

Surfer: Surfer is a general-purpose framework for selecting and ranking grid resources based on user constraints and preferences. Surfer has no built-in bias towards any job model or selection policy, thus is suitable for inclusion in any grid environment by adding information providers knowledgeable about that environment. Information is pulled from these providers as needed allowing Surfer to efficiently handle large and complex information sources unsuitable for push-based models. Surfer has been implemented as an OGSI-compliant grid service that can also be embedded directly into Java applications through its APIs or into non-Java applications through its XML-based command-line interface.

JavaGenes: JavaGenes is a fairly general purpose evolutionary software system written in Java. It implements several versions of the genetic algorithm, simulated annealing, stochastic hill climbing and other search techniques. JavaGenes has been used to evolve molecules, atomic force field parameters, digital circuits, Earth Observing Satellite schedules, and antennas. The digital circuit searches didn't work very well and the code isn't here. The antenna code is not, and may never be, available for open source distribution. Compared to version 0.7.28, this version includes the molecule evolution code and a number of other improvements.