Making the software OSS solves many problems. For example, it solves the problem of interdependency. Many tools these days aggregate the functions of several different software packages into pipelines. If one step in that pipeline is unavailable then the pipeline can be rendered unusable.
Most OSS licenses are only restrictive in the sense of trying to supersede the license in a derivative product. They do not restrict the authors unless the institution for which they work does not permit OSS licenses, which is usually done in the name of monetizing a product. In that case it doesn’t matter whether the product is published or not, except that the publication is free advertisement. If the software eventually becomes unavailable, then the publication is false advertisement and should be retracted. If it is monetized, then pay the researches with the profit, which can buy more things than simply having one's name on an article. In terms of re-implementing tools. That is a colossal waste of time. First the idea that OSS software would be “too expensive” is not logical. Second, if OSS software does not do what you wish, you modify it, not re-implement it. I don’t want to this to degenerate into a discussion of the merits of OSS. I would rather focus on the merits of not publishing articles whose purpose it is to describe closed source software. If software is described in the context of algorithms, then the description of the software should be removed from the paper. The algorithms should stand on their own. James On May 12, 2015, at 1:19 PM, Robbie Joosten <robbie_joos...@hotmail.com> wrote: > I strongly disagree with rejecting paper for any other reasons than > scientific ones. A paper describing software should properly describe the > algorithms to ensure the reproducibility. The source should be available for > inspection to ensure the program does what was claimed, for all I care this > can be under the Ms-RSL license or just under good-old copyright. The > program should preferably be available free for academic users, but if the > paper is good you should be able to re-implement the tool if it is too > expensive or doesn't exactly do what you want so it isn't entirely > necessary. > Making the software open source (in an OSS sense) does not solve any > problems that a good description of the algorithms doesn't do well already. > OSS does not guarantee long-term availability, a paper will like outlive the > software repository. OSS licenses (not the BSD license) can be so > restrictive that you end up having to re-implement the algorithms anyway. So > not having an OSS license should not be a reason to reject the paper about > the software. > > Cheers, > Robbie
