This means that at present, there is no valid documentation of the EcoSpold2 format available, and any other software developer who wants to implement the EcoSpold2 format needs to experiment with the ecoeditor to detect the deviations from the official format specification to make the implementation useful, since the ecoeditor tool is used in practice. ecoeditor: the EcoSpold2 format was developed on behalf of the ecoinvent centre for the ecoinvent v3 database ecoinvent uses a software called “ ecoeditor” for editing data sets, and for submission of new data sets to the database, in EcoSpold2 format unfortunately, the format was modified in the ecoeditor software, and the official format specification was not updated.There are several examples in the rather small world of LCA where in hindsight, an open source strategy could have made sense:
for graphical analysis) but is rather a toolkit of Python modules for advanced users.Įxamples where open source was not applied in the LCA context
There are many different open source licenses ( ) the MPL2.0 license that we selected is often characterized as (trying to provide) a good balance between open source and closed source, proprietary software developers. You are not locked in and bound to one specific software developer. However, if we develop open source software, then sponsored development will be publicly available it can be inspected, used and possibly refined by others. We at GreenDelta also develop software that is not open source. This means, for you as a sponsor of openLCA development:
You can also contact us and ask us to include the code in our distribution of openLCA (which requires that we perform a quality check of your contribution). If you distribute the modified software, then the open source license applies: you then need to publish, and make available for free, the source code of your changes (the “derived work”). We’d appreciate it if you could contact us then so that we can align our work.
If you have an idea on how to improve or modify openLCA, feel free to do so. This means, for you as software developer: The fact that openLCA is open source does not mean that you have any obligation to publish or make accessible any data you use or models you create in openLCA. This makes open source software also suited for work in highly sensitive areas. If you want you can even inspect the code for any potential issues including security issues and any malicious behaviour. You can freely share both the software and any models you create in openLCA, provided the database licenses allow it.
OpenLCA is completely free, without any license costs.
lists more detailed criteria, ten in total.