Welcome to the UC San Diego Open Source Program Office (OSPO)
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Got a Question?
Contact the OSPO@ucsd.edu
Send us your questions, schedule a consultation or come to the OSPO Office Hours.
Why Open Source?
You may not know it, but you use Open Source every day. It’s in your phones, your cars, your smart appliances. Major companies (like Google, Apple, Microsoft) use and promote Open Source development. Open Source plays a significant role in research. As the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative notes “Open source software is crucial to modern scientific research, advancing biology and medicine while providing reproducibility and transparency.” Increasingly, research grants require the release of research results under open source license terms. Even governments rely on Open Source, so much so that Germany has created a Sovereign Tech Fund to promote Open Source development.
So, what is Open Source?
Simply put, Open Source Software is software made available in source code (human readable) form and licensed under terms that allow users to freely use, copy, modify, and distribute the software. For more details, the Open Source Initiative definition is generally accepted as the standard in the open source community.
Some Open Source Licenses may place additional obligations on the modification and distribution of the software. It is important to understand these nuances. The OSPO can help you with that.
Open source projects are often collaborative endeavors, accepting modifications from third parties called “contributors”. These projects can run the gamut from a single contributor maintaining and developing the code to thousands of people world-wide working together.
What is the UC San Diego OSPO?
The UCSD Open Source Program Office (OSPO) is a dedicated team in the UC San Diego Library that seeks to foster community engagement, compliance with open source licenses, and promote best practices for utilizing open source technology. By facilitating meaningful participation in open source activities, the OSPO helps individuals at UCSD leverage the full potential of open source to meet their objectives.
The UCSD OSPO is part of the UC OSPO Network consisting of the OSPOs of UC Berkeley, UCLA, Santa Cruz, Santa Barbara and Davis. The Network strives to create a robust, interconnected network of OSPOs throughout the UC system. The Network is fostering innovation, promoting knowledge sharing, and establishing best practices for open-source software development and usage. The Network and the UCSD OSPO are funded by a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
Who can benefit from the OSPO services?
Anyone - Be it a student looking to make their first contribution, a researcher looking for help selecting a license, a staff member looking to release a new app under open source, individuals seeking to contribute to an external open source project, individuals looking to create a start-up and seeking advice on how to work with open source or any other situation involving open source.
Students
Faculty and Researchers
Staff
How can engaging in OS activities help me?
- Gain and improve skills. Learn how to work collaboratively with others on projects. Learn how to work with version control systems and deal with merge errors.
- Build a portfolio of your work. Demonstrate to employers and research labs your technical abilities, including how to work in a version control system. Potentially build a reputation in the open source community.
- Networking. Meet like-minded people. Perhaps, meet a mentor or become a mentor.
- Make your code available to others. Potentially, build a community and gain contributors for your project.
- Find free solutions/tools for your needs.
How can the OSPO help me?
- Learning resources - Tutorials
- Consultations and advice on Open Source issues, including how to get involved in the Open Source community and best practices for your project
- Events, hackathons, talks with members of the Open Source community
- Listing of local Open Source conferences
- Project Registry
- Help navigating UC policies when contributing to Open Source projects
