The OpenQuake Engine is a set of libraries, a software framework and a command line tool to compute seismic hazard and seismic risk on a global scale.
It is the main product of the [GEM Foundation] (http://www.globalquakemodel.org/) and was developed as an Open Source project with several contributors, starting from 2010. I joined GEM in October 2012 and since January 2014 I have become the main developer of the engine.
This blog aims to document my daily work on the engine, as well as my ideas on its development and its future. My ideas are my own, and they do not necessarily reflect the official view of GEM. The development of the engine and of all GEM products is a mediation between the desiderata of our scientific staff and the needs of the users, by taking into account the directives of the Governing Board. I can just assess the technical feasibility of projects and the estimated effort to implement them.
Who should follow this blog? I am writing primarily for the users of the engine, to keep them informed of the progress we are making, and to solicit comments and feedback. The blog posts here are also forwarded to the [openquake-users] (https://groups.google.com/forum/?hl=en#!forum/openquake-users) mailing list.
Some posts will serve as documentation of the engine and may be moved to the official docs later on. Other posts will serve to provide the background and explanations for certain technical decisions.
The requests of the users are tracked in our [public bug tracker] (https://bugs.launchpad.net/oq-engine/+bugs?orderby=status); notice that, despite the name, 90% of the “bugs” listed there are not actually bugs, but just requests for new features and improvements.
If you are a skilled developer, you can follow the development on the GitHub repositories, since it is entirely public, and not a single code line enters in the engine code base without an open review. This blog is for the ones who care about the development of the engine but do not have the time or the expertise to follow the code reviews.