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Open v. Closed Source-Climate Change Research
theidocles writes "The ongoing debate over the 'hockey stick' climate graph has an interesting side note.
McKitrick & McIntyre (M&M), the critics, have published their complete source code and it's written using the well-known R statistics package (covered by the GPL). Mann, Bradley & Hughes, the defenders, described their algorithm but have only released part of their source code, and refuse to divulge the rest, which really makes it look like they have some errors/omissions to hide (they did publish the data they used). There's an issue of open source vs closed source as well as how much publicly-funded researchers should be required to disclose - should they be allowed to generate 'closed-source' solutions at the taxpayers' expense?"
By this logic, then shouldn't you, the taxpayer, have a right to dictate how money, say, with Medicare, is spent?
You're footing the bill, shouldn't you have the right to say which doctors will be seen, and which medications will be prescribed? I realize that there is a government agency that plays this role, but when has anyone on slashdot ever trusted the government to make a decision for them?