Raising awareness about open source licensing at the German aerospace center

Abstract

Using open source software in projects and publishing software under an open source license became common in science and engineering. Scientists and engineers therefore have to know about open source licenses, their requirements and restrictions as well as the resultant license compatibility issues. In most cases, this is not the case. Especially if more than one open source license is involved. At the German Aerospace Center, we developed a comprehensive approach to empower and support our space and aerospace scientists in using and publishing open source software without facing licensing problems. Our bottom up strategy is based on providing hands-on material and training courses first, instead of starting off with “official” but impractical process guides. We focus on creating a community between peer scientists using online tools as well as face-to-face workshops, supported by a foundation of information provided by experts. Feedback from this community of DLR scientist flows back to improve existing documentation and to identify further steps.