Vincent wrote: "It is a step forward for F/OSS as it acknowledges that open-source code allows to spread a new method better than a closed source. As opposed to, filing a patent - since patents were originally developed to ensure that new methods be available to all."
You are right in that open source is good at spreading algorithms but no one should be locked out by decree. Thus the licensing of software is critical; the GNU GPL license including Copyleft is not to be confused with something like Python; from the Python web site: "The Python implementation is under an open source license that makes it freely usable and distributable, even for commercial use" In regards to GNU GPL; never in the history of literature has the words "freedom" and "choice" been so misrepresented; they stand behind their lawyers. How much of the software under GNU GPL license have been developed using computers provided by institutes - was it really a hobby. Fox is under GNU GPL - not very helpful to society in a general sense wouldn't you say. >From what I have read on Nature Methods decision then if the journals of J. Applied Cryst and Acta Cryst were to go down the same path then 2000 plus users of TOPAS and TOPAS-Academic would be without a means of reading peer reviewed articles on the algorithms used by those programs. This would be a tragedy not to mention users of other commercial programs in the field. Let's hope that it doesn't come to that. >Often this development is not funded as an isolated project - but part of a larger project > (hence the developments at large instruments). Good to see but to say that these projects are part of a wider orchestrated effort is to be optimistic. All the best Alan
