[postgis-devel] DOI for the PostGIS project / Springer Handbook of Geoinformatics

[Peter Löwe]

Hi Paul, all,
thanks for responding so quickly.

Unlike a URL, a DOI (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_object_identifier) will never break (no 404 error ever). DOI enable long term open access preservation and storage, which is handled by global scientific infrastructures, including Zenodo and what will follow afterwards. Content (i.e. PostGIS releases) preserved that way will be available long time after the current project repo and Wikipedia will be a thing of the past. BTW, Wikipedia digs DOI as a reference for reliable information.

The Handbook will be around for at least five, maybe ten years. One reason for DOI (which will keep pointing to the latest PostGIS release, and maybe more up to date content (see #5 below) is to give added value to the readers and not to bog them down with obsolete information.

The PostGIS community can of course register a DOI whenever they agree to do so, if ever. I just want to make sure that all software projects covered in the Open Source chapter can make an informed decision whether they want to have their DOI referenced in the Handbook. Otherwise, the project URL will be used for reference, of course.

Some reasons for DOI for the PostGIS community are IMHO:

1) Little effort, no cost and significant benefits for everybody who's involved in PostGIS and relies on scientific credit for their careers (-> students, early career scientists, people on tenure track).
2) preservation of all code releases in an open access long term repository (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zenodo), free of charge and effortless for the project community
3) Reference by DOI is the way to go when citing anything with a long list of authors/committers: PostGIS has about 85 committers according to GitHub, I would expect there might be even more involved persons which deserve due credit for their work.
4) When ORCIDs (https://orcid.org/) for persons serving as developers, maintainers, etc. are included into the committer - metadata (GitHub-sided), the DOI workflows will pick this up and will add due credit by reference to their citation lists.
5) DOI can be used to link information. This includes DOI for video recordings and presentations. Videos from FOSS4G events (we already have piles of them) can now be linked to software project DOI and vice versa (and also linked to ORCIDs of real people), like https://doi.org/10.5446/32022 or https://doi.org/10.5446/15549 :-)

One option could be to upload the latest stable releases for now (with the option to evolve, if need or enthusiasm arises), as the rasdaman community does: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1040171

Best,
Peter



<peter.loewe at gmx.de>


> Gesendet: Donnerstag, 13. Januar 2022 um 18:37 Uhr
> Von: "Paul Ramsey" <pramsey at cleverelephant.ca>
> An: "PostGIS Development Discussion" <postgis-devel at lists.osgeo.org>
> Betreff: Re: [postgis-devel] DOI for the PostGIS project / Springer Handbook of Geoinformatics
>
> Hi Peter,
> Sorry was going back and forth with folks.
> The "low effort" option (hooking into github) is not one that actually works for our project, as we don't do releases on github. The "high effort" option (manually logging releases all the time) is one that nobody is particularly interested in taking on for fun. I'm not sure I wholly understand why this particular web site will be any more persistent than other web sites (like wikipedia, or the project web site itself) that include information about the project. Maybe someone else in the project will have more enthusiasm to pick this up?
> P.
> 
> > On Jan 13, 2022, at 9:33 AM, Peter Löwe <peter.loewe at gmx.de> wrote:
> > 
> > Dear PostGIS developers,
> > 
> > I'm reaching out to you because of an opportunity for the PostGIS community, which surfaced recently:
> > The upcoming second edition of the Springer Handbook of Geoinformatics will cover the PostGIS project. The Handbook project has been delayed due to the Pandemic, but will be completed in a few weeks. I am serving as the editor of the Handbook chapter about Open Source Geoinformatics. The authors and editors for the Handbook project work without financial compensation by Springer and will not benefit from the number of volumes sold.
> > The Open Source chapter aims to expose audiences, which still might believe that only facts are relevant when stated in cost intense non open access publications, to open source, open access, and open science.
> > 
> > Recently, new workflows for scientific citation of software projects have emerged and are becoming state of the art. This includes references by persistent digital object identifiers (DOI) to software projects instead of URLs. DOI-based references allow to give due credit to the whole project team, including first authors, developers, but also maintainers and people in other roles.
> > 
> > Several OSGeo projects including GRASS GIS, GMT, MapServer, MOSS and rasdaman have already registered their own DOI, QGIS, GeoServer, GeoTools, GeoPython,
> > PRO, GDAL and OSGeoLive are considering to register DOI soon.
> > 
> > As an example, this is the DOI for GRASS GIS: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5810537
> > Hands on information how to register a DOI for a OSGeo project is available here: https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Persistent_identifiers(pid).
> > 
> > The Editors of the Springer Handbook agree that including DOI references for Open Source projects is a win-win-scenario for the audience of the upcoming Handbook and also the OSGeo project communities. They have extended the production deadline until January 20 to give additional software projects the opportunity to register a DOI to be included in the book chapter.
> > 
> > If the PostGIS project reserves or registers a DOI (takes only a few minutes) before the deadline of January 20, I would gladly include it in the Open Source Geoinformatics chapter reference section.
> > 
> > 
> > Please let me know if you have any questions.
> > 
> > Best,
> > Peter
> > 
> > https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Peter_Loewe
> > <peter.loewe at gmx.de>
> > 
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