MDAnalysis is a NumFOCUS Sponsored Project!
20 Feb 2020
MDAnalysis is now a NumFOCUS Sponsored Project! Let us explain who MDAnalysis and NumFOCUS are and what being a sponsored project means:
MDAnalysis is an open source software project that produces the MDAnalysis Python library for the analysis of computer simulations of many-body systems at the molecular scale, spanning use cases from interactions of drugs with proteins to novel materials. It is widely used in the scientific community and is written by scientists for scientists. The MDAnalysis Project is represented by the MDAnalysis Core Developers.
NumFOCUS is an organization that promotes open practices in research, data, and scientific computing by serving as a fiscal sponsor for open source projects and organizing community-driven educational programs. In brief, they provide financial and logistic infrastructure to many open source projects that fulfill important roles in their communities. NumFOCUS is a 501(c)(3) public charity in the United States and it is able to accept donations for and on-behalf of projects and to act as a grantee.
NumFOCUS will accept funds on behalf of the MDAnalysis Project and then make them available to us. By becoming a fiscally sponsored project, we agreed that all software produced under the MDAnalysis umbrella is and will be free Open Source software and that any funds will be spent compliant with NumFOCUS’ tax-exempt status: what this means in practice is that all funds will go to further the growth and well-being of the project.
So if you want to donate to MDAnalysis: you can now do this easily by clicking this button:
More importantly, with NumFOCUS as a partner, MDAnalysis gains a long-term perspective for stable development that becomes less dependent on individuals and academic institutions. It allows the project to obtain its own funding and move in directions that best benefit its community. For example, it will become easier to organize workshops, arrange for developers to travel, and to hire developers.
For users and developers, the way the MDAnalysis Project operates will not change: it remains a friendly and respectful community that welcomes everyone’s contributions and that is committed to producing good software that helps us all do interesting science. But together with NumFOCUS, we will be able to do more than before… stay tuned!