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I'm currently an engineering masters student, and the code I've written is available on github, if not properly licensed (I'm seriously considering slapping the

I'm currently an engineering masters student, and the code I've written is available on github, if not properly licensed (I'm seriously considering slapping the CRAPL onto it now that I'm aware of it). I don't really care too much about polish, since, I mean, it does what I want, I have the excuse of working around other peoples' software, and at worst someone finds out that I did something wrong, and we all benefit. Plus, having it on github makes it really easy to work on it from different locations, and version control helps me document just where all my friggin' time went. The biggest concerns I've heard from other researchers (ie, professors) has to do with being beaten at a publish. I think that as long as your paper itself isn't easy to find pre-submission, then you're okay, especially if nobody will really understand what you're doing anyway. So, I'm not too nervous about the prospect. It's just code for now. Unfortunately, even if scientists release their own code, it's often just a small part of the big picture. In engineering, at least, MATLAB, Mathematica and commercial Finite Element packages are everywhere. My own project uses MATLAB and COMSOL in tandem, meaning that what I wrote only really serves to glue a bunch of completely closed algorithms together. Personally, I'd love to see a completely open, usable and documented FEA stack (which would ideally include an adaptive mesher, some FEM algorithms, a post-process visualizer, and both a gui and a not-shitty scripting API).

kd0amg 16y ago
I'm currently an engineering masters student, and the code I've written is available on github Did you have to clear this with your university/advisor? AFAIK, my university has copyright on code I produce on paid time or using university facilities/equipment, which covers my research and even a good chunk of my homework. meaning that what I wrote only really serves to glue a bunch of completely closed algorithms together This is consistent with what I've run across. It seems a lot of research revolves around modifications to an existing system, but in CS, it seems the established code base is more likely to be open source (e.g. Jikes RVM) or be proprietary but still have source code readily available (e.g. SimpleScalar).
- jesusabdullah 16y ago
  > Did you have to clear this with your university/advisor? I don't know if I had to, but I did discuss it with my advisor, mostly due to the "someone could steal my thunder" issue, and we were basically in agreement. I actually have a really cool advisor--I lucked out there.
  - kd0amg 16y ago
    Eh... good enough. I'd do it if I had my advisor's approval (I really doubt he'd give an OK that would get me in trouble).
- scott_s 16y ago
  Did you have to clear this with your university/advisor? AFAIK, my university has copyright on code I produce on paid time or using university facilities/equipment, which covers my research and even a good chunk of my homework. They're very unlikely to stop you if you just go and do it. It only really becomes an issue if you try to make money off of it.

kd0amg 16y ago

I'm currently an engineering masters student, and the code I've written is available on github Did you have to clear this with your university/advisor? AFAIK, my university has copyright on code I produce on paid time or using university facilities/equipment, which covers my research and even a good chunk of my homework. meaning that what I wrote only really serves to glue a bunch of completely closed algorithms together This is consistent with what I've run across. It seems a lot of research revolves around modifications to an existing system, but in CS, it seems the established code base is more likely to be open source (e.g. Jikes RVM) or be proprietary but still have source code readily available (e.g. SimpleScalar).

jesusabdullah 16y ago
> Did you have to clear this with your university/advisor? I don't know if I had to, but I did discuss it with my advisor, mostly due to the "someone could steal my thunder" issue, and we were basically in agreement. I actually have a really cool advisor--I lucked out there.
- kd0amg 16y ago
  Eh... good enough. I'd do it if I had my advisor's approval (I really doubt he'd give an OK that would get me in trouble).
scott_s 16y ago
Did you have to clear this with your university/advisor? AFAIK, my university has copyright on code I produce on paid time or using university facilities/equipment, which covers my research and even a good chunk of my homework. They're very unlikely to stop you if you just go and do it. It only really becomes an issue if you try to make money off of it.