Brian
>I personally feel that open source software is usually in the best interests of scientific >methods development. This is a matter of opinion but even if you are right then no one has the right to deny non-publically funded bodies the right to practice science. Science or knowledge is not owned by institutes or Governments or anyone that set themselves up as judge and jury. >However, I don't see the intent of the editorial to force that model on anyone. Your reading of Nature Methods decision seems to indicate that there's nothing to worry about; there seems to be confusion. I don't know why because as I see it people like myself are locked out of Nature Materials. I would not like to attempt to publish an algorithmic article in Nature and not provide the source code. Vincent wrote: >I believe the ideal licensing uses a dual approach (1) provide the source code as GPL >to encourage others to provide their modifications and (2) allow another closed-source >licensing to be available, at a price. That way everybody is happy. Your wishes sounds reasonable. As it stands however the reality of a GNU GPL license is that if a manufacture wanted to modify and include a program licensed under it in order to sell a larger manufacturing process for commercial purposes then they would be denied access unless all 10 people who wrote the software gave explicit permission, even if the software was written using public money. Many seem to be unaware that they live in a larger community and not a fish bowl. Science moves backwards every time it closes a door in its ivory tower. GNU GLP is divisive, it divides, its practices exclusivity and it's a sham in my view. Denial of access is what this all about. Cheers Alan From: Brian H. Toby [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, 25 March 2007 6:41 AM To: rietveld_l@ill.fr Subject: [Fwd: [ccp4bb] Nature policy update regarding source code] Begin forwarded message: >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... I think that people are misreading the intent of the editorial. From the abstract: Software that is custom-developed as part of novel methods is as important for the method's implementation as reagents and protocols. Such software, or the underlying algorithms, must be made available to readers upon publication. Note that TOPAS is available to Nature Method readers... one only has to buy it, so no problem here. The problem is really when a scientific result is obtained with software that is both unique and not distributed. How could cold-fusion, polywater etc be debunked if one has to know the secret handshake to know enough details to duplicate the work. I personally feel that open source software is usually in the best interests of scientific methods development. I would be uncomfortable if the only method available to me to check that a structural model matches data were a single undisclosed code (such as GSAS or TOPAS). However one has a wealth of programs that can be used to verify that a model matches the observed data. In worst case, I could pull out a calculator and grind out some structure factors. There may be some improvements in the algorithms, but the fundamental equations are all well understood here. Access to code improves science, IMHO. When people can read through code, errors are spotted. Access to code allows a motivated scientist to develop a new method by building on an existing one rather than starting from scratch, where the latter can be a huge hurdle. Perhaps the argument is less acute, as few scientists are prepared to code or even modify programs. However, I don't see the intent of the editorial to force that model on anyone. Brian
