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Good thing NASA likewise never uses Open Source to design engines and aircraft alongside companies like Boeing. (*This product may contain nuts^H^H^H^Hsarcasm.)

Good thing NASA likewise never uses Open Source to design engines and aircraft alongside companies like Boeing. (*This product may contain nuts^H^H^H^Hsarcasm.)

Good thing NASA likewise never uses Open Source to design engines and aircraft alongside companies like Boeing. (*This product may contain nuts^H^H^H^Hsarcasm.)

Good thing NASA likewise never uses Open Source to design engines and aircraft alongside companies like Boeing. (*This product may contain nuts^H^H^H^Hsarcasm.)

Good thing NASA likewise never uses Open Source to design engines and aircraft alongside companies like Boeing. (*This product may contain nuts^H^H^H^Hsarcasm.)

In addition there's a NASA initiative called COSMIC that I remember subscribing to Back In The Day. According to the links I've found, it looks like COSMIC still has some legs.

NASA developed NASTRAN, one of the most popular and powerful Finite Element Analysis programs, a long time ago and released it to the public. http://www.openchannelfoundation.org/projects/NAST RAN/

Years ago (1980s) NASA used to have a repository called COSMIC that contained lots of code

"[We, the Science Musuem of Minnesota,] are frustrated by a lack of consolidated resources and discussion about open-source, scientific visualization development tools"

• OpenDX - powerful data visualisation software
  • Open source but downloading requires you to register and to acknowledge their patents. This software became open-source in 1999
  • as first discussed here on Slashdot (why does Slashdot still use the same old Slashcode which even after 7 years of development still destroys the nesting of all its archived articles after 2 weeks???)
  
  
• Vis5d - has a unique interface for explicit 5d data visualisation
  • Open source but development has ceased.
  
  
• Webwinds - 3d data visualisation software
  • Open source, Java.
  
  
• LinkWinds - 3d data visualisation software
  • Open source but restricted download and development has ceased.
  
  
• OpenQVIS - 3d realtime volume visualisation on commodity desktop computers
  • Open source.

Incidentally, if you remember NASA's old distribution system, COSMIC, Open Channel does have some COSMIC softare available. But I see that same "private use" license there.

COSMIC (1966-1998, R.I.P.) policy included:

Unless the program is copyrighted, licensed, patented or otherwise protected, users within the U.S. may freely duplicate programs, and/or may incorporate portions of NASA-developed codes into commercial products for use within the United States. Restrictions with regard to international distribution of NASA products and derivative products apply to some programs. Consult with COSMIC on a program by program basis for details. Users are also permitted to commercialize their own versions of licensed and copyrighted codes. Again, COSMIC can provide details on the terms and conditions.

Incidentally, if you remember NASA's old distribution system, COSMIC, Open Channel does have some COSMIC softare available. But I see that same "private use" license there.

COSMIC (1966-1998, R.I.P.) policy included:

Unless the program is copyrighted, licensed, patented or otherwise protected, users within the U.S. may freely duplicate programs, and/or may incorporate portions of NASA-developed codes into commercial products for use within the United States. Restrictions with regard to international distribution of NASA products and derivative products apply to some programs. Consult with COSMIC on a program by program basis for details. Users are also permitted to commercialize their own versions of licensed and copyrighted codes. Again, COSMIC can provide details on the terms and conditions.

Recently the Open Channel Foundation did begin making it available free. Open Channel apparently hopes to fund itself by commercializing some software.

Actually, you might be surprised just how much government code makes it out to the world. In general the source that doesn't make it out is the stuff that is either classified (which wouldn't be useful to most open source programmers anyway, since they don't need better missile guidance), or incorperates other copywritten code. For instance, my company often uses the Open Channel Foundation to publish code. Most of the stuff in here isn't really that useful for your average Linux geek, but there is plenty of material nonetheless.

One of the problems is that the government doesn't bother to build a better web browser, they're building interface kits to expensive milspec satellite systems.

Having the government sell software made more sense when computers were big expensive things and any development project required formal approval and a big budget. Most businesses are small businesses, and they create an amazing variety of services and items. It makes more sense to just publish the results for public use (just as the research results should be)...and let the government get more income from increased wealth (wealth is not a zero-sum game).

Sure, a big company might not have to pay $25,000 when they can get it free. But 250 people or small companies may examine the free code and create a wider variety of things and even more wealth. If only 25 people create $5,000 each in additional income, the government already gained more in taxes. (That's easy to exceed; I'm likely to create $5,000 in income just from an hour a day in my basement this year, and a serious profit activity creates much more)

"Originally published as part of the COSMIC collection - 500+ programs across the widest imaginable range of disciplines - NASA CLASSIC software essentially is the "retail" end of that collection.

``The open source world can't even come close to providing real corporate applications such as CAD and structural analysis, and slews of other engineering apps.''

I take it that by ``corporate applications'' you mean those that you spend too much money on or those that come in glossy boxes. You've, obviously, never heard of the NASA's COSMIC software library that used to be administered by the University of Georgia. For the cost of distribution, like the FSF, you could obtain applications of the sort you listed... with source code. UofG doesn't do the distribution any more but it's been taken over by Open Channel Software and can be found at http://www.openchannelfoundation.org/cosmic/. You can even ``adopt'' an application and get involved in the development of enhancements. Another potential source is the DECUS software archive (now called `Encompass'); there's a slew of software available. A lot of it's systems management related utilities but the semi-annual symposium collections used to contain a bunch of gems that we found useful. And I sure hope you know about the FTP archives on ibiblio. Of course, if what one's really looking for in a ``corporate application'' is someone to sue, I suppose these won't fit their needs.

I will agree with you that many commercial packages for UNIX cost more than they should. But to say imply that there aren't more cost effective solutions, and are open source to boot (no pun intended), is just naive.

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