The case for free and open source software in research and scholarship

Area of Science:

• Computational Science
• Research Methodology

Background:

• Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) grants extensive user rights.
• The research landscape increasingly relies on computational tools.
• Open initiatives like open science, research, and scholarship are gaining prominence.

Purpose of the Study:

• To explore the intersection of FOSS and computational reproducibility.
• To define computational researchers in the modern research environment.
• To provide a primer on FOSS for research quality and sustainability.

Main Methods:

• Situating FOSS within broader 'open' initiatives.
• Defining computational researchers.
• Presenting a FOSS primer for diverse research stakeholders.
• Illustrating FOSS application in scientific computing using the GNU Scientific Library.

Main Results:

• FOSS principles directly support computational reproducibility.
• All active research contributors are considered computational researchers.
• FOSS is essential for research quality, sustainability, and transparency.
• The GNU Scientific Library serves as a practical case study for FOSS in scientific computing.

Conclusions:

• The common interpretation of 'open source' as merely 'open code' is inaccurate.
• FOSS plays a vital role in advancing modern research and scholarship.
• Adoption of FOSS principles promotes reliable and reproducible computational science.