The Center for Open-Source Research Software Stewardship and Advancement (CORSA)
CORSA is a community of practice dedicated to software sustainability for scientific and research software projects.
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About CORSA
Mission
To promote sustainable practices in the research software community and support the development, maintenance, and long-term viability of research software.
Vision
The Center for Open-Source Research Software Stewardship and Advancement (CORSA) serves as a community of practice that enables pathways for open-source scientific software projects to avail themselves of resources for long-term growth, stewardship, advancement, and innovation.
Community
Our community comprises any open source scientific and research software projects interested in sustainablity and pathways to foundations. We are founding members of the Consortium for the Advancement of Scientific Software (CASS).
Team
| Greg Watson |
| Addi Thakur Malviya |
| Elaine M. Raybourn |
| Daniel S. Katz |
| Bill Hoffman |
| Dana Robinson |
| info@corsa.center |
Key Components
1
Pathways to Foundations
Assisting the research software ecosystem to avail the resources and community structure of open source software foundations.
Learn about foundations2
Software Sustainability Metrics
Curating metrics that enable software projects to better understand and improve their sustainability. As part of this we identify software sustainability metrics frameworks and a set of tools that can enable projects to collect and analyze metrics specific to their software.
Foundations
Need help choosing a foundation? Click on the links below to find out more about each foundation and what it takes to apply and join. Or, see a table that compares features of the foundations.
Apache Software Foundation (ASF)
The ASF exists to provide software for the public good. It believes in the power of community over code, known as The Apache Way. Thousands of people around the world contribute to ASF open source projects every day.
Eclipse Foundation
The Eclipse Foundation provides its global community of individuals and organizations with a business-friendly environment for open source software collaboration and innovation.
High Performance Software Foundation (HPSF)
HPSF is an open-source, vendor neutral hub for high performance software projects working groups, events, and training.
LF AI & Data Foundation
Its mission is to build and support an open AI community, and drive open source innovation in the AI, ML, DL and Data domains by enabling collaboration, sharing best practices, supporting development efforts, and the creation of new opportunities for all the members of the community.
NumFOCUS
The mission of NumFOCUS is to promote open practices in research, data, and scientific computing by serving as a fiscal sponsor for open source projects and organizing community-driven educational programs.
Open Molecular Software Foundation (OMSF)
Committed to the advancement of molecular sciences by building high quality, open source software and sustainable communities for research software development.
Representatives of foundations interested in potentially being listed on this website are welcome to contact CORSA.
Benefits
Are you wondering what the benefits of joining an open source foundation are? Here is a list of some of the things to gain from joining a foundation. (We also have a more detailed list of potential benefits).
Benefits for Projects
- 1. Comprehensive support for sustainable research software development
- 2. Improved software sustainability and maintainability
- 3. Enhanced skills and knowledge through education and training
- 4. Guidance and consultation on sustainability practices
- 5. Access to funding opportunities
Benefits for Funding Entities
- 1. Alignment with sustainable development goals
- 2. Increased impact of funding through collaboration
- 3. Streamlined project selection based on sustainability criteria
- 4. Diverse funding opportunities
- 5. Collaboration and knowledge sharing within the research software community
Success Stories
Do foundations really work for projects? Here are some experiences that CASS projects have had with foundation membership. For more information see https://zenodo.org/records/17065562
Spack
To continue to grow adoption, the Spack team wanted to remove any doubt that the project would remain open. The Spack team had received feedback from some companies that with LLNL as the single controlling organization, it was difficult for them to invest time in the project or to advertise Spack as a solution for users... Membership in HPSF has proven helpful for Spack. It led to Spack having publicly documented governance and a steering committee that can make decisions for the project. As part of HPSF, the Spack team hosted a user meeting with over 50 attendees as part of the inaugural HPSFCon 2025 and also collaborated with other projects at the conference.
Kokkos
As a multi-institutional project, Kokkos needed a neutral home for governance to encourage sustained development commitment from these (and future) institutions. Furthermore, the project needed help with managing community resources such as the website, outreach efforts and user group meetings. For these reasons, Kokkos joined HPSF as a founding member... The first HPSF conference, which hosted the Kokkos user group meeting, was much more professionally organized and had a lower burden on the Kokkos team than the previous user group meetings. The project hopes this professionalization will also lead to potential industry customers having a better impression of the project. The outreach effort of HPSF has also helped the project significantly. Not only has the management of social media presence by LF staff been useful, it also encouraged the team to produce more outreach material such as blogs (https://hpsf.io/blog/) that then are amplified by the HPSF team.
AMReX
AMReX has been committed to open source since its inception in 2017. Although historically its development has been centered in LBNL and other DOE labs, AMReX has a growing community of users and contributors at international laboratories such as CEA and DESY, as well as those in universities and private industry in the US and abroad. A desire to continue to grow this community was a key factor in the AMReX team’s choice to join HPSF. HPSF has helped formalize our governance model and development practices, which will only become more important as the project grows.
PETSc
Though scientists at ANL continue to play a major role in PETSc development, the bulk of its development now takes place at other institutions in the United States, Europe, and the Middle East. This evolution led to the PETSc community joining NumFOCUS in 2024... Each project retains ownership of its trademarks, logos, and intellectual property; none of these are transferred to NumFOCUS. The PETSc community has benefited from its membership with NumFOCUS and plans to continue its involvement in the NumFOCUS community.