Miguel,<br><br><br> THANKS A LOT for sharing this link.<br><br> This MUST BE MANDATORY reading <br> for everybody in our field.<br><br><br>Important excerpts:<br>-----------------------------------------------------------<br>
<br>"Programs written by scientists may be small scripts to draw charts and
calculate correlations, trends and significance, larger routines to
process and filter data in more complex ways, or telemetry software to
control or acquire data from lab or field equipment. Often they are an
awkward mix of these different parts, glued together with piecemeal
scripts. What they have in common is that, after a paper's publication,
they often languish in an obscure folder or are simply deleted. Although
the paper may include a brief mathematical description of the
processing algorithm, it is rare for science software to be published or
even reliably preserved."<br><br>....<br><br>"So, openness improved both the code used by the scientists and the
ability of the public to engage with their work. This is to be expected.
Other scientific methods improve through peer review. The open-source
movement has led to rapid improvements within the software industry. But
science source code, not exposed to scrutiny, cannot benefit in this
way."<br><br>---------------------------------------------------------------------------<br><br>The "No excuses" section is just Great !!<br><br>Notable excerpts:<br><br>---------------------------------------------------------------------------<br>
<br>Excuse #3:<br><p> <span class="i">"The code is valuable intellectual property that belongs to my institution</span>."</p><p>
"Really, that little MATLAB routine to calculate a two-part fit is worth
money? Frankly, I doubt it. Some code may have long-term commercial
potential, but almost all the value lies in your expertise. My industry
has a name for code not backed by skilled experts: abandonware.
Institutions should support publishing; those who refuse are blocking
progress.</p>
<p><br></p><p>Excuse #4:<br></p><p> <span class="i">"It is too much work to polish the code</span>."</p><p>"For
scientists, the word publication is totemic, and signifies
perfectionism. But your papers need not include meticulous pages of
Fortran; the original code can be published as supplementary
information, available from an institutional or journal website."</p><br>---------------------------------------------------------------------------<br>
<br>And the conclusion couldn't be better:<br><br>---------------------------------------------------------------------------<br>
<br>"Governments, agencies and funding bodies have all called for
transparency. To make it happen, they have to be prepared to make the
necessary policy changes, and to pay for training, workshops and
initiatives. But the most important change must come in the attitude of
scientists. If you are still hesitant about releasing your code, then
ask yourself this question: does it perform the algorithm you describe
in your paper? If it does, your audience will accept it, and maybe feel
happier with its own efforts to write programs. If not, well, you should
fix that anyway"<br><br>---------------------------------------------------------------------------<br>
<br><br><a href="http://www.nature.com/news/2010/101013/full/467753a.html">http://www.nature.com/news/2010/101013/full/467753a.html</a><br><br><br><br> Thanks for sharing the link !<br><br><br> Luis.<br><br><br>
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br><div class="gmail_quote">2010/10/15 Miguel Angel Rodriguez Florido <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:marf@itccanarias.org">marf@itccanarias.org</a>></span><br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;">Freely provided working code — whatever its quality — improves programming and enables others to engage with your research, says Nick Barnes.<br>
<br>
<a href="http://www.nature.com/news/2010/101013/full/467753a.html" target="_blank">http://www.nature.com/news/2010/101013/full/467753a.html</a><br>
<br>
-- <br>
Miguel Angel Rodríguez Florido<br>
Departamento de Ingeniería del Software<br>
División de Investigación y Desarrollo Tecnológico<br>
INSTITUTO TECNOLOGICO DE CANARIAS, S.A. - GOBIERNO DE CANARIAS<br>
c/ Playa de Pozo Izquierdo s/n<br>
35119 - Sta Lucia - Gran Canaria - Canary Islands - Spain<br>
<a href="http://www.itccanarias.org" target="_blank">www.itccanarias.org</a> t: +34 928 727548/457462, f: +34 928 727517<br>
Miembro del Plan de Innovación Tecnológica MOTIVA (<a href="http://www.motivando.me" target="_blank">www.motivando.me</a>)<br>
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</blockquote></div>