Occam is a toolset for the preservation of rebuildable software and a self-hostable, federated web portal for composing repeatable workflows.
Occam (If you like acronyms, you can say it means the Open Curation of Computation And Metadata) is a project that serve as the catalyst for the tools, education, and community-building needed to bring openness, accountability, comparability, and repeatability to software distribution and scientific digital exploration.
For more information about how to install, jump to the installation section below.
The Structure of Sustainability and Accountability
For true software preservation and sustainability, including scientific accountability, our tooling needs to provide a strong, standard infrastructure supported by the community. Through this strong platform, we can educate the current and next generations how to construct and distribute better software, scientific artifacts, and research.
- Infrastructure
- Education
- Community
At a Glance
Software Curation
A versioned package manager promoting long-term software preservation for art and science.
Build/Compile Repeatability
Software is archived with its code when available and can be rebuilt in a repeatable manner.
Adaptive Preservation
Virtual Machines and/or Containers are generated on-the-fly based on adaptive knowledge.
Widgets and Data Extensibility
Archived software can be associated with files or data and then used to view or edit.
Access and Discoverability
Software metadata contains tags for the types of data it consumes which helps others discover the right tool for the job.
Workflows and Composability
Multiple programs can be chained together in a visual editor for complex operations.
Installing Your Own Occam Instance
Want to try it out yourself? You can use our own instance at https://occam.cs.pitt.edu, however Occam is best used by installing the tools on your own machine or infrastructure. You can refer to this guide for specific directions for your platform on how to install and use Occam.
Currently, Occam requires a Linux-based computer with Docker to use all of its features.
Sponsors
The OCCAM project is sponsored by Division of Computer and Network Systems, National Science Foundation, OCCAM: Open Curation for Computer Architecture Modeling, award number CNS-1305220.
OCCAM is an outcome of the Workshop on a Community Supported Computer Architecture Design and Evaluation Framework held in 2012, which was sponsored by Division of Computer and Communication Foundations, National Science Foundation, Cyberinfrastructure for Computer Architecture Design and Evaluation, award number CCF-1148646.
