“Revealing the code for software used in research will help
verify data, advocates say”
“Scientists in academe, who already share research materials and
papers freely with each other, should take a further step toward
openness by releasing the full texts of computer programs that they
use to reach conclusions in their work.”
” ‘Good science must be verifiable,’ said J. Daniel
Gezelter, an assistant professor of chemistry at the University of
Notre Dame. But scientific research that relies on software to
analyze or simulate scientific processes, he said, ‘is not
verifiable in practice unless you can look at the source
code’…
He and other scientists from academe, government, and industry
gathered here in October at the U.S. Energy Department’s Brookhaven
National Laboratory for a day-long conference that promoted the
development and use of open software for scientific research.”