Scientists have a long history of open source software and now the OuterCurve Foundation (which used to be called CodePlex) has set up a gallery to encourage even more open source development.

Although OuterCurve changed its name from CodePlex to distance itself  from Microsoft this is yet another Microsoft collaboration but with Microsoft Research this time.

The anchor project is to be Scientific Workflow Workbench - code named Project Trident - which uses WF (Windows Workflow Foundation) to manage the analysis of large data sets.  The application allows a user to:

• Automate analysis and then visualize and explore data
• Compose, run, and catalog experiments as workflows
• Capture provenance for each experiment
• Create a domain-specific workflow library to extend the functionality of the workflow workbench
• Use existing services, such as provenance and fault tolerance, or add new services
• Schedule workflows over HPC clusters or cloud computing resources

It includes optional integration with Window HPC server and the ability to reuse workflows from MyExperiment.org. The idea is that developers can extend the basic framework by adding components for data collection, analysis etc. The starting configuration has been donated by Microsoft Research under an Apache 2.0 licence.

For more information on the Outercurve Foundation, visit www.outercurve.org. For information on the Research Accelerators Gallery, visit http://www.outercurve.org/Galleries/ResearchAccelerators. For information on Project Trident, visit http://research.microsoft.com/trident.