I strongly disagree with rejecting paper for any other reasons than
scientific ones. A paper describing software should properly describe the
algorithms to ensure the reproducibility. The source should be available for
inspection to ensure the program does what was claimed, for all I care this
can be under the Ms-RSL license or just under good-old copyright. The
program should preferably be available free for academic users, but if the
paper is good you should be able to re-implement the tool if it is too
expensive or doesn't exactly do what you want so it isn't entirely
necessary.
Making the software open source (in an OSS sense) does not solve any
problems that a good description of the algorithms doesn't do well already.
OSS does not guarantee long-term availability, a paper will like outlive the
software repository. OSS licenses (not the BSD license) can be so
restrictive that you end up having to re-implement the algorithms anyway. So
not having an OSS license should not be a reason to reject the paper about
the software.
Cheers,
Robbie
> -----Original Message-----
> From: CCP4 bulletin board [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
> James Stroud
> Sent: Tuesday, May 12, 2015 20:40
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: [ccp4bb] [RANT] Reject Papers describing non-open source
> software
>
> On May 12, 2015, at 12:29 PM, Roger Rowlett <[log in to unmask]>
> wrote:
>
> > Was the research publicly funded? If you receive funds from NSF, for
example,
> you are expected to share and "make widely available and usable" software
> and inventions created under a grant (section VI.D.4. of the Award and
> administration guide). I don't know how enforceable that clause is,
however.
>
> The funding shouldn't matter. I suggest that a publication that has the
purpose
> of describing non-open source software should be summarily rejected by
> referees. In other words, the power is in our hands, not the NSF's.
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