Is it time for Open Source Science?

The  Open Source movement has revolutionized software. Consider this: If you use the internet, most of its enabling technology is Open Source. Even if you use Windows or a Mac, the massive library of Open Source applications and utilities available free for the download are enabling society to become more productive.  Open Source hardware designs are shifting emphasis from building proprietary fiefdoms to building better products based on an open platform.  Open Source also enables economic growth by creating opportunities for training, support and customization. Open Source education is providing truly equal access to higher learning for the first time in recorded history.

So why not Open Source Science? So much science today is funded by agenda driven political interests and patent lawyer driven industry. These “patrons of research” rarely serve the public interest. With the collaboration of the many available to all for the taking, the many elusive goals of science could become reality.

The Open Source Science Project, which is developing a research-based, openly accessible scientific curriculum, addresses this issue by allowing scientists to document their process of discovery all along the way.

“Our project was designed so that researchers willing to conduct open research would be protected from this form of theft by their ability to maintain an openly available paper trail from the time they submit their project proposal until the time they publish their final report,” Priyan Weerappuli, executive director of The Open Source Science Project, told Linux Insider. “It’s worth noting that while the risk of intellectual theft is real, the ability for researchers to work off of one another is an invaluable tool for furthering any given field of study. We seek to ensure is that researchers are properly credited for any such property they produce.”

Creative Commons-type licensing is another option for scientists, publications, and institutions that want to allow open access to data, methods and discoveries, while at the same time give some measure of protection to those who produce this information. Science Commons, a project of Creative Commons, for instance, provides licensing for scientific content; over a thousand scholarly journals worldwide are making use of Science Commons’ licenses. It is also involved in patent licensing for companies such as Nike (NYSE: NKE), Best Buy (NYSE: BBY) and Yahoo (Nasdaq: YHOO).

“What we do at Creative Commons in the sciences is try to intervene and change the fundamentals,” John Wilbanks, vice president of Science Commons, told LinuxInsider. “More access to information and tools means more people can take a shot at science. More freedom to operate means it’s easier to be an entrepreneur. It’s all about democratizing access to the information and tools enough to allow that distributed innovation to occur.” (Linux News)

Everyone — scientists, the general public, and even taxpayers — stands to benefit from a new scientific model, argued Wilbanks, who prefers the term “distributed science” to “open source science” to describe this process.