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Open Source Molecules
manganese4 writes "They've been discussed before in relation to Google, but the American Chemical Society has launched a new effort against perceived competitors. They are attempting to limit the government's ability to freely publish the results of scientific work paid for by tax dollars. The British journal Nature and the Univeristy of California reports on efforts by the ACS in attempting to shutdown a free database, PubChem, of molecular structures because it competes head to head with the fee-for-service Chemical Abstract Service. Their rationale is that the government should not spend taxpayer dollars on something private business is already doing. Luckily the government has not backed down."
I live in Sweden, and here there are laws prohibiting most forms of private healthcare, private transportation, etc.
Um, I'm Swedish, and that's rather an overstatement. Private health care is certainly allowed - you're not allowed to use your public health insurance for it, though, but have to pay out of your own pocket. Quite different.
And what kind of private transportation is not allowed?
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
That being said it is strange that they are so vehemently against an NIH database which is primary geared towards biological compounds (i.e. proteins and nucleic acids and derivatives) which is pretty orthogonal to most of the chemical research world. But it would be a gross oversimplification to paint the ACS as an evil money grubbing organization.
Besides, chemists are rarely evil. Science fiction proves it's always an overweight doctor come-geneticist played by marlon brando that's evil.
I recall a recent story about NOAA data. How Accuweather had some beef with publicly available weather informaiton, which the tax payers had already paid for, because they were trying to sell it.
I for one do not feel like paying for the same thing twice.
Total BS.
You do realize that the government gives grants and scholarships to students right?
I think you have a very naive view of the role of Government. It's not just to play police but also to make sure the various facets of your daily life go smoothly.
Do you like food that doesn't kill you or drugs that are effective? That's the FDA.
Do you like knowing you won't be defrauded by huge companies [*] or investment scams? That's SEC.
Do you like knowing that your kids can go to a school where there are minimal standards that are required to advance? That's another facet of state government.
Do you like driving on roads with street signs and lights?
Do you like electricity that follows north american standards?
Do you like standard cryptography that can protect [**] your banking and medical transactions?
etc, etc, etc...
The government has a hand in many aspects of your daily life that you either ignore or didn't know about.
Yes, all these things could be ran by the CEO of their respective companies. Schools could have their own curriculum and standards. Water plants could have their own levels of "clean enough". etc, etc, etc...
You vote for your government to represent you on these issues. That's why you have NIST for example.
In the case of a chemical database there is no reason why a publicly funded org can't do it. If it's the will of the people then so be it.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
Absolutely not. Your FUD is so ludicrous as to not even be worth consideration. You're speaking of yourself and what would happen if you were the State. Libetarians don't think they are superor or better than anyone else at all, which is why we don't want people like you or us in a position to control everyone else. I suggest reading up on political science instead of blathering nonsensical propoganda from god knows where.
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This is definately true, having worked for ACS, they are worried about their cash cow - The Journals - . However, the entire organization is a lumbering behemoth. Even when I was working at ACS, we were not allowed to use Chemical Abstracts Services databases even though they were part of the organization. No one I know has ever used CAS because it is too expensive, they are just asking for competition. To their credit, their journals are not as expensive as commercial ones from Elsevier, etc....
Obviously the government shouldn't have a police force, since that takes businress away from private security companies. Nor should the government run schools, since that takes money away rom private education. And having an army is unfair competition for mercenaries.
These started as entirely volunteer groups, and most today (in the US) are still volunteer groups, although tax supported (but not entirely funded) volunteer groups.
Don't think so. The Romans certainly had organized bucket brigades, but London got its first coordinated fire response when a load of insurance companies (note, that's *private* insurance companies) started selling fire insurance after the Great Fire in 1666. They would refuse to stop a fire in burning property that they hadn't insured, and that was marked as such with a visible plaque. If you happened to be a competitor insurance company and wanted to move into an area, it would be a night's work with a torch to bankrupt your competitors.
It does make more sense to keep certain services public, either because they are vital to the future of the country (a la education), or because the general public stands to get utterly screwed over by private investors (a la health care, fire services, etc)
Reality is the ultimate Rorschach.
Back in April, the ACS slammed the door shut for data mining with the CAS databases with a new set of license terms. These new conditions prohibit the use of CAS data with data mining tools.
NCBI, the suborganization of NIH that hosts pubChem, has the goal of offering comprehensive biomedical research databases. Primarily this is protein/DNA sequences as well as structures and links to literature. But proteins interact with small molecules ('chemicals'), and every living organism contains hundreds of thousands of these different molecules (see metabolomics). PubChem provides information about these molecules in the context of biomedical research. So we see PubChem is essential for NCBI's objective.