CCL:G: Science code manifesto

 Sent to CCL by: Andrew Dalke [dalke%dalkescientific.com]
 On Oct 14, 2011, at 11:18 PM, Brian.James.Duke{:}gmail.com wrote:
 > I just encountered the Science Code Manifesto, which essentially states
 > that all computer code used for scientific analysis and modeling should
 > be available for review.
 To be precise:
   All source code written specifically to process data
   for a published paper must be available to the reviewers
   and readers of the paper.
 I interpret that to mean that you don't need to ship source
 code for the entire operating system, analysis tools, compiler,
 and so on. For that matter, you can publish your Gaussian
 script, and not need to include the source for Gaussian itself.
 It does seems like it leaves a hole for people who write
 a general purpose program for one project, then use it
 (unchanged) for something which is published. Of course, the
 editors may object to that practice.
 There's also a problem with:
     Researchers who use or adapt science source code in
     their research must credit the code’s creators in
     resulting publications
 Consider the 70 authors and 15 libraries which make up
 the CDK chemistry toolkit. There might be 100+ creators.
 It's beyond reason to include everyone in the publications,
 and the general expectation is to reference the project,
 not all of the code's creators.
 Finally, if you are a follower of the Free Software Foundation's
 ideas on software freedom, then you agree that there's a freedom
 to sell software (http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html )
 for as much money as you want. This manifesto is almost at odds
 with the FSF viewpoint; I see it omits any discussion of how
 much it should cost to access the curated software.
 These aren't big problems, but they do point out that this
 is a complex issue.
 				Andrew Dalke
 				dalke]~[dalkescientific.com