UC Santa Barbara Open Source Program
UC Santa Barbara has a strong history of leadership and innovation in open source software development and open science. However, expertise and resources have traditionally been distributed across various parts of the campus. The Open Source Programs Team at UCSB serves as a central hub, bringing together open source activities, expertise, and community connections.
UC Santa Barbara is a proud partner in the UC OSPO Network, collaborating alongside five other UC campuses. Our support for both the UCSB community and the broader network includes:
- Identifying and cataloging open source projects developed at UC campuses
- Creating educational materials, curricula, and best practice guidelines
- Offering services and resources aimed at ensuring the sustainability of open source projects
Current projects
UCSB Open Source Meetup#
We are thrilled to be launching the UCSB Open Source Meetup! This group is open to UCSB students, faculty, and staff who are interested in open source, and is designed to help members build skills and connections. We will meet in-person once a month, except a few months a year, in which we will join other OSPO Network campuses in a combined virtual meeting. We will rotate between casual discussions and talks from guest speakers (both UCSB and industry). If there is demand, we may also do code reviews or mini-projects! Here are some of the topics we’re thinking of discussing:
- CI/CD, unit tests
- Contributing guidelines and code style guides
- Getting started contributing
- Forking and branching
- Licensing
- Open source security, bug horror stories, bug awards?
- Building community
- Funding open source
- The history of open source
- Companies that have switched from open to closed licenses
- Open source AI
The in-person meetings will be on the first Wednesday of the month at noon in room 1411 in the UCSB Library (inside the Sara Miller McCune Arts Library). Bring your lunch!
- Join the mailing list
- Add it to your calendar so you know which meetings are in-person and which are virtual.
UC Open Source Survey#
Our team recently spearheaded a survey of more than 200 open source contributors as part of the UC OSPO Network’s discovery activities. You can read more about the structure of the survey here. We are currently analyzing the data, and will circulate the results once published. Until then, the survey instrument is available upon request, and we are happy to answer questions.
What’s the status of the UCSB OSPO?#
At present, UCSB does not have a dedicated Open Source Programs Office. Rather, we have a cross-functional team of UCSB staff with knowledge and expertise in open source who are developing the strategies, know-how, and connections needed to create an OSPO.
We envision that the UCSB OSPO will:
- Help students, faculty, and staff to exchange knowledge and build connections,
- Promote open source awareness on campus,
- Advise on open source licenses,
- Help our campus to leverage the full potential of open source,
- And more!
Building on the work of the Open Source Programs Team, the OSPO will draw on resources developed by the UC OSPO Network, and its priorities will be shaped by both UC leadership and the UCSB open source community.
The current UCSB open source programs team includes staff members at the UCSB Library, and we expect that the Library will continue to be the center of gravity for this work for the foreseeable future.
Get connected#
- To stay informed about our activities, join our mailing list.
- For inquiries, email us at ospo@library.ucsb.edu.
- We’re also on Slack in the UC-Tech workspace, on the #open-source channel. If you’d like an invitation, please email us.
- Our team:
- Virginia Scarlett, Open Source Programs Specialist
- Amber Budden, Associate University Librarian for Digital Strategies
- Jonathan Balkind, Assistant Professor of Computer Science
- Greg Janée, Director, Research Data Services, UCSB Library