The continued foundation of new institutional RSE teams is great, but
what if you still don’t have one? Who will ensure your new research
software will be sustainable/re-usable after your project money is gone?
You! Make your software extensible and use a generic data model. Let
infrastructure handle the rest: Most components are available for free,
and sustainable enough. Make use of a source code repository platform
that can handle code, documentation, and communication between users,
contributors and maintainers; pick one that is harvested by Software
Heritage. Use a dependency repository to safeguard reproducible builds;
make sure it’s the big, default one, and that it’s run from long-lasting
funds. Use Zenodo for releases: It is designed to be there for the long
run, and gives you a DOI. Student asistants are cheap: Document all the
things, so that a capable one will be able to take over maintainership
when your funding is gone. Document all the things: For users and
developers; all design decisions; all infrastructure and architecture;
all workflows; all community documents and processes. Our dedicated
research project will do just this, learn about requirements and best
practices, and share for RSEs and researcher training.
Funding
DFG grant GA 1288/11 ("Research software sustainability")