The Science Foundation Ireland Research Centre for Software (Lero), headquartered in Limerick, and Trinity College Dublin have both started open source programme offices this month, to increase their involvement with open source.
The open source programme office at Lero is one outcome of a recent review of the research institute, explains Dr Patrick Healy, a computer scientist working for the University of Limerick (UL), who will be leading the new office at Lero. “There is a rising awareness of the need to return more value to the public from publicly funded research,” Dr Healy told the Commission’s Open Source Observatory.
“There have been significant contributions to open source software both in Lero and in Ireland more generally, but these have not been systematically leveraged up to now,” added UL Professor Brian Fitzgerald, director of Lero.
Promote and support
Dr Healy and his colleagues organised a first meeting on 7 October. The participants discussed barriers to open source, including licence compliance, as well as the possibility of encouraging students to work with and on open source software. The latter idea came after a presentation from Sayeed Choudhury, Associate Dean for Research Data Management at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore (US).
On the same day, Trinity College Dublin announced its own open source office. The objective is to promote and support the principles of open source in knowledge transfer and industry engagement within Trinity College, its website explains. “The office empowers researchers to execute on their open source strategies by providing advice and the tools they need.”