We are going free and open source! – 4TU.ResearchData

"We are very pleased to announce that 4TU.ResearchData is taking the strategic choice to go free and open source! We are planning to go live with our in-house developed open source software repository in March this year.... Almost three years ago, we procured figshare as the repository software to run 4TU.ResearchData. We were pleased with the functionalities which figshare offered as well as with the quality of the support available. However, in the past few years 4TU.ResearchData has been significantly investing in building an active community of researchers and support staff around its data repository. Our community is increasingly tech-savvy and started coming up with strong wishes to make improvements to the software operating 4TU.ResearchData, or even proposing co-development of new solutions. Unfortunately, the use of proprietary software made it impossible for us to embrace the wish of the community to shape the technical development of 4TU.ResearchData. Furthermore, we came to realise that only by facilitating community-driven development, we can work towards sustainable infrastructures, which are agile and able to quickly respond to changing community needs. In other words, by co-developing and partnering with the research community, we invest in solutions which are valued and needed....