What is Digg?18 Comments
- bpowah, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I wanted to see some Python modules on that list:
http://www.scipy.org/
http://matplotlib.sourceforge.net/
http://www.ctcms.nist.gov/fipy/ - ellimist, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4...except for those who cannot afford unnecessarily expensive software
and those who like being able to change a program to fit their needs...
etc... - spektre1, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3"The only problem is that open source software doesn't benefit anyone" - i440
And how are you measuring benefit? Open source software benefits everyone through the shared knowledge it embodies. While no one is profiting in a monetary sense, the amount we gain in other means is unmeasurable. - sembetu, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Crying dupe is the new d,d,d rallying call.
- NanoStuff, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2"These results are then shared with the larger community to benefit all humanity"
This might not be relevant but now that you mention it, it seems to me science is starting to become more limited not by the advancement of science but by the distribution of obtained knowledge.
It's not uncommon nowadays for a research project to go over-budget and occasionally fail altogether because they weren't aware of a particular developement/discovery somewhere else that would have supported their own work. The problem is a certain latency between a discovery and by the time it's recognized by researchers that require it.
With such a vast amount of knowledge being created each and every day it's no surprise that various discoveries are initially overlooked, how does one categorize and distribute such information to where it's needed? - cowenowner, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Purely Open Source Science is a great dream. So was communism. The truth is, as a scientist, you choose the best tool for the job. If Octave was better than Matlab, scientists would choose it. It isn't, so they don't. LaTeX is great, but the learning curve is steep so you need to take time away from writing grants to train yourself, your undergrads and grad students. OpenOffice is slow, buggy, and incompatible with EndNote. On the other hand, Python, Ruby and Perl are better for web interactive apps and decimate most proprietary solutions. Similarly, R (not mentioned in the list) is a fantastic open source solution to statistical modeling. It all depends.
- kettlechips, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2And IBM regained profitability when they began to support Linux.
- mapkinase, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1This article does not cover even the surface of the subject. GSL is fantastic, but it uses stupid GPL license not GPL2. And this is just plain vanilla stupid. Science now requires a lot of money and a lot of science is done in industry. Industry cannot make their software GPL. The company I work in did that for the back end. It had to. But it is a pain in the neck. Science is a place where you do not want to give advantage to anybody.
- i440, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@spektre1
It is possible to profit from FOSS; it doesn't have to be free. But those profits are nowhere near as high as they would be from proprietary software. Coral, for instance, regained profitability after it stopped supporting Linux. - xixor, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1For a graduate student who will be working in a research group for 2-6 years, taking the 1 week to learn LaTeX is a tremendous use of time. The learning curve really isn't that bad. Many scientific journals prefer to have manuscripts typeset in LaTeX and most provide LaTeX style files. If you want to see frustration and learn a lot of new curse words, share an office with someone trying to write a PhD dissertation in Microsoft Word.
- kettlechips, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Look at their annual financial reports?
- elnerdo, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2Wow, there's absolutely no reason this one should be on over the other. They both have the same title and description, and both users have a nearly equal number of friends. Weird.
- Junkyarddawg, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0An opensource & extremely good software suite is the Staden package. It's a software suite to assemble and analyse DNA data obtained from GenBank or automated sequencers.
http://staden.sourceforge.net/
I consider it as good as the $1500 DNAstar package. - i440, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1"And IBM regained profitability when they began to support Linux."
Evidence? - Megasphaera, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0gromacs (www.gromacs.org) , the fastest molecular dynamics program around,
is also under the GPL. Incidentally, it uses FFTW, which only goes to show that
open access actually works.
Oh and yes, GROMOS is faster than AMBER, XPLOR and CHARMM. This, and the fact that it is open, is why Folding@home uses it (even though they use a different force field). - i440, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0Thank you, cowenowner, for a rare, unbiased view. Now please, could you be every other user on Digg for me?
- i440, on 10/12/2007, -8/+0"Science is an open process. Experimental information and results must be published so results are verifiable and reproducible. These results are then shared with the larger community to benefit all humanity."
The only problem is that open source software doesn't benefit anyone - 3monkeys, on 10/12/2007, -16/+4Dupe see http://digg.com/software/Open_scientific_software
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