[Incubator] Proposal to add FAIRness to the incubation process

[Peter Löwe OSGeo]

Hi Jody, list,

thanks for your response and taking action. I admit, I was not aware of 
the project support repo :-)

Your point about OSGeo community projects is valid: Some software 
projects like rasdaman might elect not to undergo full graduation, but 
will also benefit from DOI and Open Access archiving via Zenodo.

Fun fact: Rasdaman was the very first OSGeo project to mint a DOI via 
Zenodo in 2017

I agree, that "Open" would be an apropriate category for this.

More in the PR.

Best,
Peter


<peter.loewe at gmx.de>



Gesendet: Samstag, 4. Juli 2026 um 11:27

Von: "Jody Garnett" <jody.garnett at gmail.com>

An: "Peter Löwe OSGeo" <osgeo at peterloewe.com>

CC: incubator at lists.osgeo.org

Betreff: Re: [Incubator] Proposal to add FAIRness to the incubation 
process

Hi Peter,


As I understand it we are gradually moving to issue tracker, I was going 
to suggest you make a PR against:


https://github.com/OSGeo/osgeo/blob/master/incubation/documents/graduation_checklist.md



However I think we should move these documents to our own project 
support repo:
https://gitea.osgeo.org/osgeo/projects-support


Let me do that now, and see if we can make that repo a bit more visible 
eh?


Some questions, which we can discuss on your PR:
Do you want to make this as recommendation for the osgeo community 
projects also?

What category does it come under? "Open" probably alongside choosing a 
license, and version control



Cheers
- -

Jody Garnett




On Jun 15, 2026 at 1:21:02 PM, Peter Löwe OSGeo via Incubator 
<incubator at lists.osgeo.org> wrote:

Hello Incubation Committee,

I propose that we should consider to update the current incubation
process for the FAIR principles, especially regarding persistent digital
identifiers (DOI for code) and long term archiving of code repositories
by Open Access repositories.

The acronym FAIR stands for _F_indability, _A_ccessability,
_I_nteroperability and _R_eusability of geospatial software repositories
and data.

I am raising this topic now, as scientific publishers are changing their
best practices for citation of software, to "DOI-based code citation is
required": URLs pointing to GitHub-code repos are becoming deprecated.

Examples:

- Open access publishing platform of the European Commission:
https://open-research-europe.ec.europa.eu/for-authors/data-guidelines/#softwarecode

- WILEY (American Geophysical Union, Geophysical Union Japan, etc.):
https://www.agu.org/publications/authors/journals/data-software-for-authors#citation

- Copernicus (Open Access for the European Geoscience  Union):
https://publications.copernicus.org/for_authors/manuscript_preparation.html

- Springer Nature:
https://www.springernature.com/gp/open-science/code-policy


A growing number of OSGeo projects has already adopted FAIR practices in
addition to graduating from the OSGeo incubation process: Geopaparazzi,
GEOS, GeoServer, GeoTools, GDAL, GMT, GRASS, gvSig, istSOS, Leaflet,
Mapbender, MapServer, MOSS, movingpandas, Orfeo Toolbox, pdal,
pgRouting, PostGIS, PROJ, pygeoapi, pygile-plus QGIS, rasdaman, Wradlib,
Zoo

Detailed technical how-to info for project maintainers lives in the
OSGeo wiki: https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/DOI


These two questions could be added to the project graduation checklist
(https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Project_Graduation_Checklist#Open):

<new>
[open 3]: Open Access Repository: "Has the project established or
planned a strategy for long-term preservation and open access
distribution of project artifacts (e.g., releases, documentation,
datasets) using a trusted open access repository (e.g., Zenodo,
Figshare, or other OSGeo-approved platforms)?"

[open 4]:  Persistent Identifiers (PIDs) "Does the project utilize or
plan to adopt persistent identifiers (PIDs) for contributors (e.g.,
ORCID) and software releases (e.g., DOIs via Zenodo or other PID
registries) to ensure proper attribution and machine-readable citation?"
</new>


The FAIR score for software projects can be measured with the Automated
FAIR Data Assessment Toolkit (F-UJI): https://www.f-uji.net/index.php

To see for yourselves, enter these DOI/URL into F-UHI:

1) QGIS: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20444851

2) GDAL: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20083023

3) A random propietary GIS:
https://doc.esri.com/en/arcgis-pro/latest/get-started/download-arcgis-pro.html

I expect that dding FAIRness to the incubation process will ensure that
the OSGeo projects stay up to date, receive due scientific credit and
public visibility.


Best,
Peter



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