Re: slightly off-topic: support open source for publically -funded research

[W . Northcott]

>research results".  This is mixing metaphors.  Open source is the
>equivalent of standardized tools in scientific research.  The software,
>itself, is not the research.  The software is one (and only one)
>description of one of the pieces of experimental equipment used.

I would take issue with most of this writer's comments, but this one most
of all.

More and more results of research are going to be critically dependent on
the software used to produce them.  If it is not available for review,
then the results are questionable.

Back in the days of Galileo there were those who argued that his 'planets'
were abberations in the crude optics of his telescopes.  This could only
be countered by opening them to scrutiny.  So it is with software today.

Bill Northcott



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