Open-Source Biology

nicholast writes with this "article describing the growing use of open-source collaboration methods in biology. The subtitle and main question is: Can a band of biologists who share data freely out-innovate the corporate researchers who hoard it?"

Comments

Sources of funding

[jonman_d]

I'm all for the free flow of information, expecially in science. But if there isn't an opertunity to make bundles of money, where is the funding going to come from? Government grants only go so far, after all.

Personally, I think that corperate funded science is a must...though I'm glad to see that some scientists are freely sharing information. The best way to do science is to combine both (which will never happen) and show corperations that they can get rich even when they share their data.

Re:Sources of funding

[mr_z_beeblebrox]

Most biology is colloborative to a pretty high degree. Places pay for pertinent research and they pay for a well selected team if money exists, then those on the team have their own alliances to rely on etc... so normally there are several names to a project. I used to work in a USDA lab doing little piggy behaviour research at a NW Indiana University we worked with Drs from Pennsylvania on that project. Opening it further would be of significant value to the world but taking competition ouot would be detrimental to their paychecks I think... Karl

This has already been proven...

[IQ]

"question is: Can a band of biologists who share data freely out-innovate the corporate researchers who hoard it?"

Unless this isn't 'biology' the human genome project has already succeeded in beating out a private commercial project with the human genome map.

Re:Pretty ignorant response

[Slashamatic]

Shall we say that certain parts of the industry, particularly those relation to pharmaceuticals have been a little too fond of hot money. Some academics like to have one foot at the University whilst the other is at a professional lab, tending to reduce the quality of 'open' work.

I agree with you that the point of patents is to promote disclosure in return for a limited monopoly. The problem is that because of the running time of the monopoly (about 10-15 yrs for a drug, because the first 5-10 years deals with the approval process), the patents will be left until the last moment.

The other issue is the non end-use related patents. Large companies can swap licenses on this but smaller companies and the third-world need to carefully avoid the intermediate steps that have been patented.

Again you are right that the Open Source movement is a bit of a Johnnie-Come-Lately as regards disclosure, but the use of copyleft is something that has come from the computer field and has given vast leverage to developers. You are right about the purpose of patents, but essentially they have become a way of sowing a legal minefield in a competitor's path.