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."

Comments

Private and public are not mutually exclusive

[October_30th]

Why is it that people always see public and private services as mutually exclusive options?

For instance, private and public health care as well as transportation work very well together.

Re:Private and public are not mutually exclusive

[October_30th]

it seems that they are threatened financially by this.

Yes, sure, but isn't it essential for a business to come up with something that justifies the cost of their services? In healthcare business private clinics you get to see a specialist sooner. In public transportation it means being able to get a taxi instead of having to wait for a bus/underground.

It's outrageout to say "we produce the same data, so the government should get out of our business". ACS should come up with other services (data mining, consultation,...) by which it differentiates itself from the free service.

it's essential that these databases be open

[cahiha]

Data mining is becoming more and more important for science. But you can't do data mining if the data is locked up and requires cumbersome and costly subscriptions to access.

Chemical, biological, and other scientific databases need to be open, free, and freely redistributable for science and technology to continue to make rapid progress.

by that logic

[poor_boi]

Their rational is that the government should not spend taxpayer dollars on something private business is already doing.

Guess we can shut down public schools then, now, eh?

Re:Not so fast, Uncle Sam

[JanneM]

Government shouldn't pay for something that the private sector is already doing. Full stop.

So if I start my own fire brigade I should demand that publicly funded fire fighing be outlawed?

Libraries should be closed since booksellers are missing out on sales?

Private schols certainly have a distorted market with public schools being provided.

Who decides what is critical for the government to provide? Would you not say that health care, for instance, falls under providing safety?

Re:Not so fast, Uncle Sam

[redcone]

It is not about government encroachment. it is about the right of the taxpayers to freely access the results of research paid for by public taxes and not having it "claimed" as the private property" of a for profit organization.

The question of whether governments should finance research is a separate issue.

Out of context!!!

[robotkid]

I've been following this debate, alot of high-profile journals are full of opinion articles on this. But here's some context for all those too lazy to RTFA: ACS publishes "SCIFINDER" and "CHEMICAL ABSTRACTS" which is NOT a database of journal papers. It is a database of chemical structures and properties which is invaluable to any research chemist because a) most information on exotic compounds are not published in journals and b) even if they were you'd have a very hard time searching journals for occurences of chemical compounds. (FYI most of this info was probably NOT gained through tax-funded research, it's mostly industrial) Just about every chemistry lab in the nation has to pay a subscription for this service, but it obviously requires many, many curators to keep up to date because of the crazy amount of info out there. ACS is a nonprofit organization and it uses the proceeds to fund things like scientific meetings and putting every journal article from the last 100 years online (they are way ahead of most journals that only have 5 or 10 years online).

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.