Government 2.0 – Collaboration: NASA launches CosmoCode for internal collaboration

NASA has announced today that their CoLab has launched CosmoCode as an internal alpha to provide “free and open source space software through an independent project hosting website, and the development and management of a free software community specific to the challenges and opportunities afforded by space.”

Here are the goals and vision of the website:

Goals

The goals of CosmosCode are to:

1. Explore the cost-benefit of leveraging the free and open source development process for projects that normally costs millions of dollars in development and testing;
2. Open a door to our silicon valley neighbors and encourage private industry to create products and services which leverage and extend NASA’s investments, extending their applicability and relevance to the commercial sector;
3. Leverage the free and open source community to improve software quality, enhance the functionality of existing software products, and create a virtual center of expertise in the area of space software;
4. Improve the effectiveness of existing collaborations with other NASA Centers, space agencies, universities, and contractors;
5. Through tutorials, transparency, collaborative planning, and a direct connection to NASA developers, provide an on-ramp for programmers looking to get involved in space, and for space companies looking to get involved in software;
6. Distribute NASA’s public software to as wide an audience as possible.

Website

CosmosCode will offer:

1. Free Project Hosting (source code repository and project tools (Trac): wiki, tickets, subversion browsing)
2. Guides and HowTos on developing open source for the space sector, blogs and discussion forums for questions and relationship building

Community building: bridging the divide

1. Clarifying and paving the way for NASA projects to participate in the free/open source community; Opening the door for the the same community to support core NASA mission requirements
2. Focus on interaction and collaboration

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