SustainableGinkgo4_calibri.pdf

An important aspect in the design of a numerical software ecosystem is software sustainability and to ensure ease of use and contributing. With the primary intention of providing a numerical linear algebra library to the scientific computing community, we design the Ginkgo linear operator library based on the the guidelines and policies of the Extreme-scale Scientific Software Development Kit (xSDK) and the Better Scientific Software (BSSw) initiatives. We follow the open source strategy with a modified BSD license, which does not restrict commercial use of the software. The main repository is publicly available on github and only prototype implementations of ongoing research is kept in a private repository. The github repository is open to external contributions through a peer-review system and uses issues for bug tracking and to bolster development efforts. A Continuous Integration system (CI) realizes the automatic synchronization of repositories, and the compilation and testing of the distinct branches. Configuration and the compilation process are facilitated with CMake. The testing is realized using Google Test and comprises a comprehensive list of unit tests ensuring the library's functionality. Finally, a documentation is automatically kept up-to date with the software, and multiple wiki pages containing examples, tutorials, and contributor guidelines are available.