Getting a scientific prize for open-source software

http://gael-varoquaux.info/programming/getting-a-big-scientific-prize-for-open-source-software.html

by gorpovitch • 7 years ago

142 24 7 years ago

gael-varoquaux.info

bpesquet• 7 years ago

Some historical context on scikit-learn:

https://orbi.uliege.be/bitstream/2268/154357/1/paper.pdf (2013)

https://amueller.github.io/papers/wo_the_machine_varoquaux.p... (2015)

lonelappde• 7 years ago

OP is right-on as to why this is a big deal in academia.

I want to see it spread beyond computer programming libraries into areas where sharing is harder, like open source scientific equipment and fully reproducible methods in chemistry experiments.

chrisseaton6• 7 years ago

OP is right-on as to why this is a big deal in academia.

The ACM (academic computer science group) has awarded prizes to these open source systems projects amongst others recently:

- Wireshark

- Jupyter

- GCC

- Mach

- Coq

- LLVM

- Eclipse

- make

- Java

- Tcl/Tk

The linked article is written like the academy never works on or recognises open source software or implementation work, or using open licences is unusual. That's not true.

OldGuyInTheClub7• 7 years ago

Yes. The self-congratulation was very off putting.

hobofan4• 7 years ago

OP was talking about academia in general, and not just about CS-academia, which is of course a lot more sensitive to open source software.

In traditional (= non-CS) academia, proprietary software is still very much the norm, and as long as institutes get a free license for academic usage they also don't seem to care about open source too much. I don't know how much precedent there is, but such recognition from traditional academia still seems to be pretty rare and worthy of highlighting.

hobofan4• 7 years ago

fully reproducible methods in chemistry experiments

Top-tier open source libraries for cheminformatics (or other natural science -informatics flavours) would already be a welcome start.

OldGuyInTheClub7• 7 years ago

Published chemical syntheses are described in very great detail. Physical chemistry/spectroscopy papers likewise describe apparatus, collection, and analysis often down to the nuts and bolts. I don't see how to open source work requiring a femtosecond mid-infrared laser or a prep requiring a synthesis lab with all the reagents, labware, and safety equipment. Buried in the open source PR is the unshakeable underlying belief that science begins when the data are in the can and ready for analysis.

luthaf2• 7 years ago

What do you think is missing in the current offering (OpenBabel, RDKIT, maybe some other I am missing)?

Context: I do research in computational chemistry, and write an open source library for this, that could be used for cheminformatics too. I don't really know what is needed for this though, since I never touched cheminformatics.

fghtr• 7 years ago

If you think that all software written on public money should be public, consider this petition: https://publiccode.eu

OrgNet• 7 years ago

I think the budget used to make this software possible should also be public... yet we have a black budget

Getting a scientific prize for open-source software

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