2011 NASA Open Source Summit - Terry Fong

1 Open Source at NASA – A practitioner’s perspective irg.arc.nasa.gov

Terry Fong Intelligent Robotics Group

NASA Ames Research Center [email protected]

Open Source at NASA A practitioner’s perspective …

2 Open Source at NASA – A practitioner’s perspective

Why is Open Source good for NASA?

More transparent •  Enables the public to better understand what software NASA needs to

fulfill its mission & activities •  Enables the public to better understand how taxpayer dollars are

being used

More participatory •  Enables the public to assist in NASA software development •  Enables students, scientists, the general public, etc. to contribute their

expertise and skills

More collaborative •  Enables NASA to transfer technology efficiently and rapidly •  Enables NASA to more easily partner and work with others


IRG Open Source Software

Vision Workbench

RoverSW

Neo Geography Toolkit

GeoCam

Vehicle Detection

RAPID


Vision Workbench (2006)

Overview •  Modular, extensible, C++ computer vision framework •  Rapid development and flexible, multi-platform (Linux, OS-X, Win32) •  Supports science analysis, robot perception, image stitching, etc.


Vision Workbench (2006)

Developers •  Government: NASA Ames Intelligent Systems Division •  Prime Contractor: QSS Group, Inc. •  University: Carnegie Mellon / Silicon Valley •  Non-Profit: Research Institute for Advanced Computer Science

Key points •  Software library

(continuous release / hosted on GitHub) •  Rapid, on-going development •  Supports numerous collaborations (funded & informal), interns, etc. •  Requires several external, open source libraries

(OS licenses: Boost, MIT, BSD-like) •  Enhanced functionality with additional open source libraries

(OS licenses: zlib/png, SGI, GPL2, etc.)


GeoCam (2007)


GeoCam (2007)

Developers •  Government: NASA Ames Intelligent Systems Division •  University: Carnegie Mellon / Silicon Valley •  Internship program: Education Associates

Key points •  Software suite: smartphone apps, Web UI’s, server software, tools

(continuous release / hosted on GitHub) •  Rapid, on-going development •  Supports developers, first responders, citizen groups, etc. •  Requires several external, open source libraries

(OS licenses: BSD, BSD-like, MIT, NOSA) •  Enhanced functionality with additional open source libraries

(OS licenses: Apache 2, BSD-like, LGPL3, MIT)


Neo-Geography Toolkit (2009)

Overview •  Tools for geospatial data processing, automated map making, etc. •  Supports large-scale data (10-100 TB), cloud & super computing •  Import / export to geo-browsers & OGC standards (Web services)


NGT for “Moon / Mars in Google Earth”


Neo-Geography Toolkit (2009)

Developers •  Government: NASA Ames Intelligent Systems Division •  Prime Contractor: SGT, Inc. •  University: Carnegie Mellon / Silicon Valley •  Internship program: Education Associates

Key points •  Software suite: libraries, processing pipelines & tools

(continuous release / hosted on GitHub) •  Rapid, on-going development •  Supports numerous collaborations (funded & informal), interns, etc. •  Requires several external, open source libraries

(OS licenses: Apache 2, BSD, GPL 3, ISIS 3, LGPL 2.1, MIT, NOSA)


RAPID (2009)

Overview •  “Robot Application Programming Interface Delegate” •  Standardized programming interface (API) for robot software •  Messaging & data distribution for NASA robots & user interfaces

RAPID Workbench Robot RAPID

Bridge RAPID

Middleware

API A

PI


RAPID (2009)

Developers •  Government: NASA Ames (Code TI) & Johnson (Code ER) •  Prime Contractor: SGT, Inc. •  Subcontractor: TRACLabs, Inc. •  Non-Profit: Research Institute for Advanced Computer Science

Key points •  Software suite: libraries, user interface, reference implementation

(hosted on SourceForge) •  Facilitates basic research & collaboration worldwide (does not require

SUA / other agreement that would be extremely difficult to execute) •  De-facto NASA robotics open standard


RoverSW (2010)

Overview •  Service-oriented robotics software architecture •  Designed for NASA-relevant research robots •  Software framework + composable modules


RoverSW on the K10 Planetary Rover

VIDEO


RoverSW (2010)

Developers •  Government: NASA Ames Intelligent Systems Division •  Prime Contractor: SGT, Inc. •  University: Carnegie Mellon / Silicon Valley •  Non-Profit: Research Institute for Advanced Computer Science

Key points •  Software library •  Facilitates collaboration with others worldwide & interns •  Enables third-parties (e.g., small businesses) to test without SUA •  Requires several external, open source libraries

(OS licenses: BSD, BSD-like, LGPL 2.1 & 3, MIT, NOSA) •  Enhanced functionality with additional open source libraries

(OS licenses: BSD-like, NOSA)


NTL “Vehicle Detection” (2011)

NASA Tournament Labs (NTL) •  Collaboration between NASA, Harvard Business School & TopCoder •  Crowd-source NASA software through programming contests •  Winning solutions will be released as NASA open source

Vehicle Detection Challenge •  First contest: three-weeks (Jan 28-Feb 18, 2011) •  Automatically classify aerial images that contain a vehicle •  139 competitors from around the world

http://community.topcoder.com/ntl


IRG Open Source Software

Common characteristics •  Developed by multi-org workforce, not just civil servants

➯  Have to consider contract clauses & other concerns (Bahy-Dole rights)

•  On-going, rapid development ➯  Intermittent point releases are not appropriate

•  Intended to support & facilitate collaboration ➯  Must be easy to adopt (e.g., licensing should not get in the way !) ➯  Must be easy to access (e.g., hosted on popular sites, not NASA site !)

•  Wide range of users (individuals, companies, non-profits, etc.) ➯  Barrier to entry must be as low as possible (licensing, access, paperwork)

•  Built upon other open source libraries ➯  May restrict how software is released or what license is used


Open Source Release Process*

Month 1 2 3 4 5 • • •

Fill-out release forms   NF1679 (invention disclosure)   Software release request   List of external libraries

(and their licenses)   NPR 7150.2 matrix

Submit release forms

Initial reviews   Export review   External library licenses   Collect copyright assignments   etc.

Final reviews

Release approved Release meeting   SW briefing   Q&A

DEV

ELO

PER

SOFT

WA

RE

REL

EASE

A

UTH

OR

ITY

* From a developer’s perspective


Lessons Learned: Potential Bottlenecks

Copyright assignment •  Multi-org workforce: civil servants, contractors, interns, universities •  Can take long if non-NASA organizations unfamiliar with process

Export control •  Can take long if software is difficult to categorize •  Can take long if software has possible ITAR characteristics

External licenses •  Must carefully distinguish between "required" and "optional” •  Review can take long (no central database of reviewed licenses)

508 compliance •  NASA workforce (especially researchers) not trained for ensuring this

SE compliance •  Open source software is not (usually) designed with this in mind

(can be at odds with agile development methods …)


Towards Open Source Development

What makes NASA different ? •  Taxpayer-funded federal institution •  Culture (engineering driven, minimize risk, etc.) •  Mixed workforce (civil servants, contractors, etc.) •  Unique, highly-specialized software •  Non-competition with commercial sector


Development Use Cases

Point release •  Infrequent release of completed software (traditional model) •  Internal development by NASA workforce

Continuous release •  On-going, frequent release of software under development •  Done only within well-defined bounds and with periodic review •  Internal development by NASA workforce

Community development •  On-going, joint development to common code base •  NASA workforce (official duties) & volunteers

Crowd-sourcing •  Rapid development at hackathons •  Result of programming contests (e.g., NASA Tournament Labs) •  May / may not have NASA workforce involved (official duties)


(Some) Issues

How can we improve the NASA OS release process? •  How to make it faster & more efficient? •  How to make it more consistent across the agency? •  How to make it easier for practitioners?

How can we improve licensing? •  Under what circumstances is NOSA (still) useful? •  What is needed for NASA to be able to use a suite of licenses

(Apache 2, GPL 3, etc.) for release?

How can NASA engage in community development? •  What is needed for third-party contributions? •  What is needed for crowd-sourcing? •  What can we do in the near-term?


Questions?

Intelligent Robotics Group Intelligent Systems Division

NASA Ames Research Center

irg.arc.nasa.gov

Documents

2011 NASA Open Source Summit - Terry Fong