---
aliases:
- /2021/11/fund-healpy
categories:
- healpy
date: '2021-11-08'
layout: post
title: Fund healpy via Github Sponsors

---

[**Github Sponsor page**](https://github.com/sponsors/zonca)

## Summary

* `healpy` is low-level necessary tooling for working with cosmology data
* There is never funding for maintaining `healpy`
* Consider using grants to fund `healpy` through [Github Sponsors](https://github.com/sponsors/zonca?frequency=recurring&sponsor=zonca)
* This will fund extra working hours for Andrea Zonca to work on the project

## Preamble

In ~2007 I was a Graduate Student at the Italian Istitute of Astrophysics, I was using `numpy`, just created a couple of years prior.
I remember that Travis Oliphant, the developer of `numpy`, was asking for a contribution to get a PDF version of the manual. I realized I could have helped development of this key Python package and I was able to purchase it on our funding for the [Planck mission](https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Planck).

## Current status of `healpy`

I have been the lead maintainer of `healpy` since 2010, when I was working as a Postdoc at University of California Santa Barbara.
The package is now close to a large re-factoring. Martin Reinecke, the developer of HEALPix C++, released a Python package, [`ducc0`](https://pypi.org/project/ducc0/), which includes all the low-level functionality needed by `healpy`.
The plan is to create a major rewrite of `healpy`, changing the interface, and provide a higher level interface to `ducc0` as a pure Python package which has all the features of the current `healpy` versions, i.e. file I/O, plotting, interface to spherical harmonics transforms.

## Funding for `healpy`

There have never been funding specifically focused on `healpy`, I have generally took time out of my working week to maintain the package, instead of working on the project I was funded for.
This is getting more and more complicated as I advance my career and get more responsibilities.

We recently applied for a NASA grant that would fund `healpy` work at 20% Full Time Equivalent for 3 years, it got "very good" reviews, but was not funded.

## Using Github Sponsors

So my idea for long-term sustainability of `healpy` is to ask projects using `healpy` on a daily basis to support the maintenance of the package on their grants.
After all, back in the day, everybody was paying for IDL licenses. Now, if Principal Investigators, possibly prompted by PostDocs/Grad or Undergrad students, could spend a bit of software money from their grants into funding maintenance of `healpy`, we could have a healthier sustainability plan for `healpy`.

Github has launched the Github Sponsors program specifically to fund open-source software. People can make a recurring or one-time contribution to a project or to a developer.

[**Github Sponsor page**](https://github.com/sponsors/zonca)

## How funds will be used

Funds will cover extra hours on top of my work week that I will dedicate exclusively to `healpy`, in particular:

* fix bugs
* review Pull Requests with code contributions
* work on the re-factoring from a HEALPix C++ to a `ducc` backend
* [write tutorials on how to use `healpy` for CMB data analysis](https://zonca.dev/categories/#healpy)
* [answer `healpy`-related questions on Stack Overflow](https://stackoverflow.com/users/597609/andrea-zonca?tab=answers)

## Feedback

If you have any feedback, please [tweet `@andreazonca`](https://twitter.com/andreazonca) or email `zonca` on the domain `sdsc.edu`.