Statistical Software Components Next Generation (SSC-NG)

Project Overview

We are building a new organization to take over management of a key statistical software community (the Statistical Software Components archive), and set it up for technical and organizational sustainability and growth for the next 20 years. The meta goal is to maintain and support a vibrant open-source community for statistical software, setting it on a sustainable path for future growth.

Objectives

The core objectives are:

Modernize the technical infrastructure while preserving strong backward compatibility;
Establish a self-perpetuating governance structure;
Improve package discoverability and accessibility;
Implement versioning and preservation mechanisms;
Streamline the submission process for package authors.

Outcomes

Concrete outcomes include the creation of a new non-profit entity; an increase in submissions, and increased package use. Long-term outcomes include easier and more robust reproducible research compendia in economics, medecine, and other disciplines using Stata.

Proposed Activities

A preliminary governing council will be convened to support creation of a permanent non-profit entity. The technical infrastructure underpinning the SSC for submission and dissemination will be (cautiously) modernized. Community input will be collected, aggregated, and incorporated. The final step of the project will be to hand-over governance to a self-perpetuating non-profit entity

Funding

The project is currently (2026-2028) supported through funding from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation under award G-2026-79611.