Ten simple rules for funding scientific open source software.

Abstract

Scientific research increasingly relies on open source software (OSS). Funding OSS development requires intentional focus on issues of scholarly credit, unique forms of labor, maintenance, governance, and inclusive community-building. Such issues cut across different scientific disciplines that make them of interest to a variety of funders and institutions but may present challenges in understanding generalized needs. Here we present 10 simple rules for investing in scientific OSS and the teams who build and maintain it.