COIN-OR

COIN-OR stands for the Computational Infrastructure for Operations Research. The stated goal of the COIN-OR project is "to create for mathematical software what the open literature is for mathematical theory." The open literature (e.g., a research journal) provides the OR community with a peer-review process and an archive. Papers in operations research journals on mathematical theory often contain supporting numerical results from computational studies. The software implementations, models, and data used to produce the numerical results are typically not published. The status quo impeded researchers needing to reproduce computational results, make fair comparisons, and extend the state of the art.

The success of Linux, Apache, and other projects popularized the open-source model of software development and distribution. A group at IBM Research proposed open source as an analagous yet viable means to "publish" software, models, and data. COIN-OR was conceived as a intiative to promote open-source in the computational Operations Research community and to provide the on-line resources and hosting services required to enable others to run their own open-source software projects.

The COIN-OR website was launched as an experiment in 2000, in conjunction with 17th International Symposium on Math Programming in Atlanta, Georgia. Today, COIN-OR has more than 20 projects, including tools for linear programming (e.g., COIN-OR CLP), nonlinear programming, integer programming (e.g., COIN-OR SYMPHONY) and more. COIN-OR is hosted by the Institutes for Operations Research and the Management Sciences, INFORMS, and run by the educational, non-profit COIN-OR Foundation.