Software is critical to the success of science. Creating and using Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) fosters contributions from the scientific community, creates a peer-reviewed and consensus oriented environment, and promotes sustainability of science infrastructures.
Providing open access to source code also permits reuse of data, reproducibility of science, and creates scientific transparency. Open science is only possible when access to data is open, and data is analysed using open source software. This requires taking responsibility for software development, and adopting stewardship practices for managing, processing and disseminating scientific data products and related services.

This session will look at the growing role of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) in the geosciences with a special emphasis on the interoperability among established and developing FOSS-tools within geoinformatics. The session will be a forum for the latest advances in FOSS-empowered research, for successful applications of existing FOSS tools for geoscientific tasks, as for new developments in geoscience related FOSS. This session will also discuss the publication and citation of scientific free and open source software.