coinor

COIN-OR, short for Computational Infrastructure for Operations Research, is an open-source project that provides a modular collection of software tools for formulating and solving optimization problems. It is designed to support research, education, and industry by offering freely available solvers, modeling tools, and libraries that can be extended or integrated into larger systems.

The project includes a range of components for different problem classes. Core solvers include CBC, a mixed-integer programming solver, and CLP, a linear programming solver. In addition, COIN-OR offers tools for nonlinear and global optimization, such as Ipopt (interior-point optimizer), Bonmin (mixed-integer nonlinear programming), and Couenne (global optimization). The infrastructure also encompasses modeling interfaces and utility libraries used to build and compose solvers.

Origin and governance: COIN-OR originated in the early 2000s as a collaborative effort among researchers in academia and industry. It is coordinated by the COIN-OR Foundation, a non-profit organization that oversees development, licensing, and community contributions. Code and documentation are distributed openly and are maintained by a combination of volunteers and contributing organizations.

Licensing and accessibility: Most COIN-OR components are released under open-source licenses, enabling free use, modification, and redistribution. The project employs public version control and maintains repositories and documentation that are accessible to researchers, students, and practitioners through official channels such as coin-or.org.

Impact: COIN-OR is widely used in teaching, research, and practical optimization tasks, providing a low-cost platform for experimenting with algorithms, solvers, and modeling approaches in operations research.