Page 171 - Materials Chemistry, Second Edition

SOFTWARE FOR LIFE CYCLE ASSESSMENT 155

Example for the two reference units 'm' and 'kg' as they are used in the
openLCA format converter
Open Source: The open source idea has been discussed above, in the section
on open source software. Despite the advantages of the concept, there seems to
be only two "real" open source LCA software systems available today: open-
15
LCA [openLCA 2012] and Brightway [Mutel 2008] . Other software systems
are announced to become open source, while for others, created in publicly
funded projects, development seems to have stopped after the end of the
16
project . This speaks against a broader trend. Possible reasons could be, for
software developers, reluctance to changing a traditional and successful busi-
ness model, or to disclosing the code. Published source code may be criticised
for not being perfect, and intellectual property will then be openly displayed.
Further, all major LCA software companies have been on the market for quite
some time now, with LCA software systems that are coded in Delphi, which is
unusual in modern open source projects; therefore, it will be more difficult to
find appropriate "libraries" or elements from other open source projects. This
reduces the benefits of open source solutions. And finally, users of LCA soft-
ware are still willing to pay license fees and to deal with license restrictions.
On the technical side, increased use of web-based software makes the open
source idea less powerful, since open source software needs to be openly dis-
played with source code only if it is distributed, which is not the case if soft-
ware is installed on a webserver (that is then accessed by several, distributed,
users). This means that there may be quite some LCA software systems using
open source components, without in turn being displayed to the public again
as open source, since they are not technically distributed.
For a few LCA software projects, however, open source development seems
to fit well.

6152 Possible Future Trends
Let us assume that future developments of LCA software will be driven by an
overall increasing demand for LCA results, from a broader public with a busi-
ness, policy, or consumer background; and that, further, technical experiences
from hiding complexity and from increasing usability that have been gained
in other areas (e.g. web search engines, smartphones) enter also into the LCA
domain.
With these two assumptions, the following trends seem likely:
Flexibility and Diversification: As application areas for LCA software
become broader, there will be a need to better adapt LCA software to these
specific areas, e.g. by changing workflow, design, terminology used, and also

15
Programmed in Python by Chris Mutel from ETH Zürich, a command line LCA tool, http://
brightway lea. org / plugins / pri vatebeta /
16 An example of the latter is empinia, http://www.empinia.org, started by ifu Hamburg, the
Umberto developers. On January 31 2012, the forum on the website, with "Latest news from the
development crew", has three entries, the latest from 05/26/2010, a good-bye message.