developerWorks: Open Source in the Lab

“Scientists and engineers conventionally use proprietary
products such as The MathWorks’ MATLAB, Wolfram Research’s
Mathematica, or SAS Institute’s SAS/IML (see Resources for links to
the companies’ products mentioned in this article) to collect,
process, and report research data. Although it’s tempting from a
software standpoint to lump these products into the larger category
of ‘business intelligence’ or ‘analytics,’ they each are carefully
crafted for the specialized science laboratory market–and enjoy
unusually high levels of customer satisfaction.

“These applications have been successful, both financially and
technically. MathWorks, for example, is still aggressively hiring
programmers and Mathematica rolls out interesting enhancements with
every release of its symbolic calculator, including
‘document-centered interfaces’ and its ‘algorithm knowledge
base.’

“These applications are running into a new generation of
competitors, though. In particular, reliance on open source
software at many sites is growing steadily. This article explains
why, and what the consequences are for your own work. It also
concludes that open source and proprietary products might end up as
teammates, rather than opponents…”

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