Agile Scientific has announced the Open Subsurface Stack, a collection of open-source Python tools for earth scientists. Agile CEO Matt Hall blogged recently on the rise of open source software in the upstream, observing ‘open data platforms are appearing all over the place’ and that ‘there seems to be a renewed appetite for open source subsurface software’. Hall warns that ‘the word open has been punted around quite a bit recently, but you have to read the small print’. A robust and trusted stack will require more than code. Testing, documentation and supported will be key. Agile’s community already has a ‘proto-stack’ with Python routines for ‘segyio, lasio, welly, and bruges’, all available on the Software Underground.
Comment: Agile’s efforts are laudable but they collide somewhat with the recently announced Open Subsurface Data Universe from Shell and The Open Group. Looking further afield we have Halliburton’s Open Earth community and the announcement of ‘open source’ software from Schlumberger. The Schlumberger and Halliburton platforms may expose code, but they are, or will be, somewhat tied to their respective software platforms. We understand that the OSDU’s code base will be opened up to non-members later this year.
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