open bioinformatics foundation: 2014 update & some introspection
DESCRIPTION
Annual update about the Open Bioinformatics Foundation, presented at the 2014 Bioinformatics Open Source Conference (BOSC). which was held July 11-12, 2014, in Boston, MA.TRANSCRIPT
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Open Bioinformatics Foundation:
2014 Update & Some IntrospectionHilmar Lapp, President
BOSC 2014
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What is the OBF?
• Umbrella organization for the Bio* projects (and EMBOSS)
• Non-profit, entirely volunteer-run
• Dedicated to promoting the practice and philosophy of Open Source software development and Open Science within the life sciences.
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What does OBF do?
• Sponsor and run BOSC and other community-nurturing initiatives
• Code Fests (and hackathons)
• Mentoring organization in Google Summer of Code
• Advocacy to promote Open Source and Open Science in bioinformatics
• Accepting and disbursing donations on behalf of member projects
• Managing assets on behalf of our member projects.
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Chris Fields@cjfieldsU. Illinois Urbana-Champaign
O|B|F is governed by a Board of Directors
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OBF is an SPI-associated project
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You can donate tax-exempt to OBF
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We use open and collaborative processes
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Growing Community: Attaining and maintaining
OBF affiliation
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What happened since BOSC 2013?
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Board of Directors Elections
• Hilmar Lapp elected to a second term as President.
• Nomi Harris elected as Director at-large, second term on the Board
• Peter Cock elected as Secretary, second term on the Board
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OBF is participating in the Google Summer of Code
• Eric Talevich (Biopython) & Raoul Bonnal (Bioruby) serve as admins
• 6 Students working in Biopython, Bioruby, Biohaskell, JSBML
• Promoting reciprocal inclusivity for umbrella organizations such as OBF
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Moving hosting to Open Source Lab
• Commercial cloud hosting costs eat up a major part of our income.
• OSL has expressed interest in taking us on.
• Gathering the necessary information has been slow and painful.
• Hoping to get this completed in 2014.
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Sustainability is hard, including for
organizations and communities
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Sustaining professional systems with volunteers is
a challenge• OBF sysadmin work rests on the same
too few people with too little time.
• Hard to be professional with volunteer work.
• Other all-volunteer tech foundations have similar problems.
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OBF is a membership organization. Or is it?
0
30
60
90
120
2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013
MembersFor perspective:•Biopython: 816 (346 on dev)•Bioperl-l: 978
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Can you help us improve this?
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What’s next?
• Improve our professionalism
• Increase what we do well. Divest of/partner for everything else.
• Partner with organizations well aligned with our mission and goals
• Identify the best ways to invest in our community
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Connect with us
• Web: http://www.open-bio.org/
• Twitter: @obf_news
• GitHub: http://github.com/obf/
• News blog: http://news.open-bio.org/
• Join us as a member.