Hm. Almost three weeks since the last entry. I've been
checking in every so often before going to bed lately (and
unfortunately usually too tired or too uncoordinated to
write anything resembling a coherent thought), and noticed
the discussion thread on the similarities between open
source and science.
Over the last few years, I've seen great examples of how
some forward-looking people are working together, inside and
outside of the university environment, to do better research
and make a difference. Sadly, I've also found these people
to be few and far between. Unfortunately, I've seen too many
instances where a PI or possible collaborator would actively
try to squelch fruitful discussions among grad students,
post-docs, other profs, etc. The primary goal thus far seems
to be focused on getting as many good publications out there
as primary author as quickly and as often as possible.
Although it's a nice ego boost, the primary reason for
keeping a high publication rate is primary financial (okay,
prestige is there as well, let's be honest :) Maintaining
this "competative advantage" often appears to be the
unwritten standing order, and this is especially seen in the
infighting between people on large projects.
There also tends to be a closed-mindedness particularly
about technology and how it can impact on the way science is
"done," for lack of a better term. Frankly, I don't see
ecology / environmental science as having a data problem as
much as it has a problem of lack of data organization, in
such a way as to make it:
- easy to submit data for inclusion and prior
verification (this is a big one)
- being able to ensure effective access to the data
- being able to ensure effective USE of the data
I've done some work on this already, and have had good
results - won't go too far into details; it would be boring
and I need to finish this thesis. Rest assured, tho, that
these will be "published" later under the GPL - some is
already available at the SGPL project site,
more will follow (and the much needed porting will happen
soon, any gnumeric hackers out there? :).
Open source has opened up some tremendous potential for
science. Perhaps the biggest contribution though, is to
start getting scientists to be thinking in the "Unix" frame
of mind, or at least gaining an appreciation of the Unix
philosophy - copious small, specialized and reusable tools
rather than few large applications. I can't speak for anyone
else, but thanks to some
people, I've come to see a raft of new possibilities
that only a few years ago I couldn't even dream of. The key
to this ephiphany was not to feel that I needed to create
new software or programs but rather to look carefully at how
existing software CAN be put to different or interesting
uses...
- using a spreadsheet as an effective interface to a
data source for complex, focused calculations
- using a web server as an efficient tool for data
analysis and visualization
- using a search engine as a personal cataloging system
for online journal articles
- using repository and good markup techniques to
facilitate keeping local lab and study documentation up to
date.
The latter is usually an underappreciated and undervalued
aspect of any endeavor, scientific or otherwise, and I've
gained a lot of respect for those people or groups working on good docs.
Even with all of this great open source software available,
there is a still a very considerable price to pay for
gaining this perspective. Pretty much everyone I know
working with Linux and Unix in general for their ecological
research feels pretty isolated because picking up *nix means
that they no longer have any peers in a research world
dominated by Win- and Mac-users. The energy (well spent,
admittedly) in climbing the learning curve means that many
in this situation (myself included) are perceived as being
more interested with the technology than in doing science.
Interestingly, in our case, we can easily work around this
lack-of-peer-support problem by using that venerable geek
tool - IRC - to maintain and develop our virtual peer
group. Not only does this bring together some pretty
competent *nix folk, but we get the added benefit of working
in a very diverse community of researchers, and a place to
talk with others about research and possible collaborations.
Moral of the story: Hug an ecolgical *nix geek
today. :)
