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<font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">What kind of open source
license would this project utilize? GPL or similar? You might have a
better chance getting others involved if they were assured that their
contributions were always passed along under the same license and that
no person or company can grab all the hard work you've done and use it
as the core for their commercial product.<br>
<br>
Randy</font><br>
<br>
On 1/21/2010 12:52 PM, Joe Huang wrote:
<blockquote cite="mid:4B58BEA5.5080602@whiteboxtechnologies.com"
type="cite">Dear Friends and Colleagues,
<br>
<br>
White Box Technologies wishes to announce its intention to establish a
non-profit Center for Open Source Building Energy Simulations (COSBES).
I admit the title may sound a bit on the grandiose side, but it
capsulizes my thinking on what may help our little world of building
energy simulations - a non-profit non-commercial center on simulation
programs and resources that's in the public domain.
<br>
<br>
My initial goals are very modest, but my long-range vision is for the
Center to be capable of significant software development and support,
but always open source. My first steps are simply to maintain an
open-source version of DOE-2.1E. DOE-2.1E has been effectively
abandoned by LBNL and DOE for close to a decade. I have assurances from
LBNL that it's only a matter of paperwork for them to make the program
open source, and have communicated to them my intentions without
receiving any objections.
<br>
<br>
So what would this support consist of, besides making the program and
source code freely available? That would of course depend on the
public's (your) interest and need, which is one reason for this
announcement! But for starters, I have a backlog of completed work that
have never been incorporated into the public release version of
DOE-2.1E, such as two-dimensional and combined response factors for
composite walls, a decent foundation model, and an improved weather
file format. In addition, I'm currently working on contract for ORNL
to incorporate AtticSim into 2.1E. Lastly, I have a license from LBNL
to continue working on my last major work there - a partially-completed
DOE-2 to EnergyPlus translator (doe2ep) that, funding pending, can be
updated to the current EnergyPlus release. Also in the works and soon
to be launched are (1) VisualEPlus, a graphical user interface for
EnergyPlus done by colleagues in China, and (2) actual-year weather
data service accessing NCDC's massive International Surface Hourly
(ISH) data base.
<br>
<br>
I had originally thought of calling a meeting at ASHRAE to make this
announcement, but then realized that finding a time to meet at ASHRAE
is an impossibility. However, I would be happy to entertain any
questions and comments while at the conference, where I'll typically be
found in TC 4.7 and 4.2 meetings. For course, I'm also open to
questions and comments posted on BLDG-SIM, although my responses will
be somewhat delayed.
<br>
</blockquote>
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