The sentence “Software programmed by researchers themselves is made publicly available along with the source code” is intrinsically linked to the concept of enabling public availability as introduced in Guideline 7(interner Link) (“Cross-phase quality assurance”). Enabling public availability can – in a narrower sense – take the form of publication, but in a broader sense it can also happen “through other communication channels”, as stated in Guideline 7(interner Link).

The scope available for enabling public availability depends on the individual case and can be organised in different ways and vis-à-vis different groups of individuals, including restricted groups or even limited to a single person and on request. The purpose of the regulation is to take into account the notion of replication as far as this is possible and reasonable.

If this broad understanding of enabling public availability is taken as a basis for Guideline 13(interner Link), too, the self-programmed software and source code do not necessarily have to be published, put on the internet or otherwise made accessible to the general public or the professional public without restriction.