Floss For Science

In episode 20, we interviewed Arfon Smith, Editor-in-chief of the Journal of Open Source Software (JOSS) and Head of Data Science at the Space Telescope Science Institute. We talked with him about the creation of JOSS and its role in peer reviewed publications of research software. He described to us how to start a peer reviewed scientific journal and the challenges and competition that he faces. We chatted about how, by using automation, reusing existing tools and staying nimble, JOSS manages to publish with low operational costs. We also discussed about the submission process and what is reviewed during the peer review. Finally, we had a discussion about the importance of FLOSS and in science and how science and FLOSS could inspire each other.