Speaker
Mr
Luc Maisonobe
(CS SI)
Description
Open-source has become a mainstream asset in most parts of today's economy, including space.
It's use is widespread and in every projects it is customary to look what existing open-source tools could be used
as building blocks. Both private companies and public organizations are heavy users of open-source. The
benefits are well-known by now (reliability, vendor-neutrality, standardization, maintenability, ...). Creating
an open-source project on the other hand is quite a different topic. For the entity that does the initial work, what
could be the incentive to publish freely some cutting edge know-how? If it is a private company in a highly
competitive environment and it has to pay for the development, what could be the rationale behind this
move?
This presentation relates such a story. It describes the history of the Orekit project, from its inception as
an internal tool in a private company, CS-SI, up to its wide adoption in the space domain by now.
It explains the reasons for the move to open-source and the rationale behind the license selection.
We dicuss the expectations at project publications, what worked and what did not work.
We describe the various phases from closed source to full open governance with a meritocratic model.
At the end, we assess the current status of the project (spoiler: it is a success).
| Applicant type | First author |
|---|
Primary author
Mr
Luc Maisonobe
(CS SI)
Co-authors
Mr
Pascal Parraud
(CS SI)
Mr
Sébastien Dinot
(CS SI)
