Fiji Software Sustainability

• Applicants: Dr. Florian Jug; Dr. Pavel Tomancak
• Subject Area: Image and Language Processing, Computer Graphics and Visualisation, Human Computer Interaction, Ubiquitous and Wearable Computing ; Bioinformatics and Theoretical Biology ; Developmental Biology
• Term: from 2018 to 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 391170321

The goal of the Fiji Software Sustainability (FiSS) project is to elevate the open source Fiji platform for research in biological image analysis to a new level of maturity that will pave the way towards sustainable provision of this crucial software to the scientific community. We will build on the unprecedented level of Fiji usage among life science researchers worldwide and the existing infrastructural groundwork assembled by the Fiji open source community over the first decade of its existence. Specifically, we will pursue three Work Packages (WPs) aiming at enhancing the areas of the Fiji software ecosystem where the current status quo requires adjustments and quality improvement.1. In WP1 we will extend existing and establish new state-of-the-art Software Engineering Infrastructure for the development, provision and dissemination of Fiji. These modern practices will benefit both developers and users of this important platform.2. In WP2 we will develop novel capabilities in multidimensional data visualization and Big Image Data processing removing known usage barriers. This will likely further enhance the appeal of the Fiji platform, in particular for users facing new bioimage analysis challenges posed by recent explosive data growth in microscopy.3. WP3 will increase the quality of the Fiji experience by providing structured education, documentation, issue resolution and other community services. This will, in conjunction with WP1 and WP2, lead to an overall more stable and better supported, more viable research software.We believe, that 1) these measures are suitable and necessary given the size of the Fiji community and the magnitude of the problem being faced by its current developers, 2) that hiring two maintainers dedicated to implement this agenda will address it sufficiently and 3) that the improvement, adjustments and experiences gained during implementation of the WPs will form the necessary groundwork for establishing models of Fiji sustainability for long term operation. We discuss several scenarios for the future financial planning and implementation of a sustainability concept. This involves, crucially, the anchoring of the Fiji platform in the time tested and successful research Services and Facilities system of MPI-CBG.Fiji is a large software ecosystem with worldwide impact and thus serves as an ideal model software infrastructure on which the challenges and solutions for long term sustainable provision of research software can be documented. By establishing the best practices that stabilize the Fiji platform through this grant we shall set an example and send a positive signal for other scientific software development projects.

• DFG Programme: Research data and software (Scientific Library Services and Information Systems)