SISAI STATISTICAL INFORMATION SYSTEMS ARCHITECTURE AND INTEGRATION WORKING GROUP 3rdMEETING 13-14 MAY 2013 ITEM 2.3 Sharing software of interest to the ESS

Sharing software of interest to the ESS SISAI 3 Meeting 14th of May 2013 BRUNO Mauro (ISTAT) MIKLIC Miran (Statistics Slovenia) GROFILS Denis (Eurostat)

Content Context Software of interest to the ESS? Software catalogue Sharing scenarios Sharing software use Sharing software development Software quality evaluation Possible implementation steps Request to SISAI Q&A

Context (1/2) Software represents an important part of the assets of the ESS €€€: Develoment, licensing fees, deployment, training, … Interoperability Data quality, comparability ESS efficiency gain through increase in level of collaboration in the area of software use and development ITDG  SISAI  ESS TF: Linked iniatives: SAB, ISA, …

Context (2/2) The possibility to share software among institutions of the ESS represents several advantages, notably: Increase efficiency and reduce costs by avoiding multiple developments of virtually the same products by different organisations Increase harmonization and interoperability through the use of standard software building blocks Improve quality of data through the use of widely accepted and validated software building blocks and improve comparability among data coming from different countries Increase the level of collaboration and resource sharing between members of the ESS  This can be enabled by appropriate policy and guidelines Promoting re-use and extension of existing solutions Federating users and allowing sharing of experience around common software Supporting joint development projects

Software of interest to the ESS? 1) Used by members of the ESS 2) to support directly activities of the GSBPM (Generic Statistical Business Process Model) 3) in order to realise the statistical programme of the ESS Independent of: The type of execution environment Operating system, Run-time system (e.g. scripts), Host application (e.g. plug-ins) The type of interface(s) Command-line interface (CLI), Graphical user interface (GUI), Application programming interface (API) The configuration of application components with regard to the use of computer network Local or remote

Software catalogue (1/2) Registers information about software meeting the 3 criteria defining software of interest  Concerns published installation packages not running instances of software! Conceptually conformant with ADMS SW 1.0 (ISA initiative, see https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/asset/adms_foss/description) Hierarchical list 2 sets of catalogue information Minimal set of information for unshared software Extended set of information for shared software + Information request procedure for unshared software

Software catalogue (2/2) The software catalogue create a link between software user and software provider

Sharing scenarios Sharing software use USE: Sharing at the level of the use of software of interest to the ESS Release of existing software as OSS DUMP: Application "as it is", no further development, no support. In that case some activities (albeit limited) are still necessary in order to release the application as OSS. START: With maintenance and/or with further development Adaptation of existing OSS JOIN: As a contribution to the original software extending its feature set FORK: As a new open source software based on the original one  Role of software catalogue!!

Sharing software use If there is more than one ESS-member using given software, an ESS user community should be created around the software.  Online user forum with group management, news items, etc. The ESS software catalogue is used to identify software for which more than one ESS members is a user At least those topics are discussed at the level of user communities: Practices and realizations in the use of the software Known bugs and workarounds Features and extensions that could be interesting for the community

Sharing software development (1/3) Based on a schematic view of software development Recommendations per cycle-step Applicability per cycle-step depends on sharing scenario

Sharing software development (2/3) Recommendations Structure

Sharing software development (3/3) Transparency/publicity as possible Practical technology-specific best practices and conventions developed by developer communities on collaborative spaces e.g. coding conventions Data protection Identification of risk of statistical disclosure Explicitly considered during design Specifically tested Particular maintenance conditions Detailed packaging guidelines are included Consistent with existing Eurostat packaging guidelines (Guidelines on publishing and sharing existing software as Open Source, see http://joinup.ec.europa.eu/sites/default/files/OSOR-X-DIS-OSS-Guidelines%20on%20publishing%20and%20sharing%20OSS-0%203-final.pdf)

Software quality evaluation (1/2) Based on ISO/IEC 9126-1 Semi-structured user reviews attached to software catalogue entries Input for ESS quality certification procedure Possibility of contestation via catalogue maintainer

Software quality evaluation (2/2) Template

Possible implementation steps Gap analysis between: Catalogue initiatives Own, shared and commercial software Formats of data and metadata Desired and actual quality of the data Stimulate cooperation on the common projects Identification of software with high-potential for sharing Possibility of joining forces for further development of existing projects Support user communities around shared software Support developer communities (sharing around software libraries and common modules, development guidelines & how-to's, coding standards, …) Develop a "shared software wizard" tool implementing the recommendations in an light software for assiting IT project leaders

Request to SISAI SISAI members are asked to comment and propose changes to the draft document and recommend it for ITDG to adopt.

Thank you for your attention! Questions? Q&A Thank you for your attention! Questions?