INCF Celebrates First Successful Adoption of an Open-Source Repository

The Brain Observatory Toolbox, an open-source MATLAB toolbox for working with datasets from the Allen Brain Observatory data collection from the Allen Institute, has been transferred from the INCF to Waltham Data Science LLC, a neuroscience-anchored data science company based in Massachusetts, USA. This marks the first successful “adoption” of a transitional open-source repository overseen by the INCF as a GitHub organization administrator. 

The Brain Observatory Toolbox was transitionally administered by the INCF as part of a pilot corporate-branded working group commissioned with MathWorks Inc., a member of the INCF’s Industry Advisory Council. MathWorks identified that open-source projects sometimes can benefit from a third-party administrator to enable ongoing contributions and review even in the absence of a natural longer-term repository owner.