Dion Almaer, Opensource Code versus Open Access to Data, OpenXource, January 23, 2005. On OA to program data, but many of the points transfer to research data. Excerpt: 'There are occasions when opensource code really isn't a big deal. Mike [Cannon-Brookes] talks about an email client as a good example. Does your company need to see the Outlook source code? Would that give you a lot? (apart from maybe fixing some Outlook bugs!). No, with tools like these, I don't really feel that opensource offers a big win. This is where open data matters more. You do not want your company to be locked in to a particular vendor or product. You want to be as flexible and loosely coupled as possible, allowing yourself to move in an agile fashion when it makes sense for the business. Let's take a look at an example and see how we feel about things: [1] Product A is opensource software. It uses a proprietary binary format for its data. [2] Product B is closed source software. Its data format is very open though. There is an XML format with a published schema in which you can validate against. The format is also part of a standard, which other products also support. In this case, although in theory it is possible look into product A to be able to munge the binary format, I would much rather be interfacing with product B unless I was wanting to extend product A to do something.'
Posted by
Peter Suber at 1/25/2005 10:54:00 AM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
