Nature.com: Correspondence: Open-source work even more vital to genome project than to software

[ Thanks to Rob van
Son for this link. ]

“We note with dismay and alarm the controversy concerning
access, distribution and patenting of the human genome sequence
(Nature 404, 317; 2000 & Nature 404, 324; 2000). We wish to
point out some analogies between the human genome sequencing
efforts and ‘open-source’ software development, which have
implications for the data-release policy of the public sequencing
effort.“

“Since introduction of the open-source concept, a global network
of volunteer programmers is developing and maintaining freely
available, sophisticated software that can be modified and
redistributed by anyone. The validity of the open-source model has
been proved over decades. Its best known achievement is GNU-Linux,
the fastest-growing operating system on the major hardware
platforms, which is widely thought to be more powerful, stable and
flexible than proprietary commercial products.”

“The reasons why the Linux project could succeed against
commercial wisdom have been analysed by Eric S. Raymond in his book
The Cathedral and the Bazaar (O’Reilly, 1999). Most of these
findings are of relevance to academic and commercial benefits
arising from human genome sequencing.”

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