Mike Martin, Scientific Research Backs Wisdom of Open Source, NewsFactor Sci-Tech, December 15, 2003. (Thanks to Garrett Eastman.) New scientific studies of how open-source communities build and debug software conclude that the process is more complex and more effective than usually thought. Quoting Walt Scacchi, a senior research scientist at UC Irvine's Institute for Software Research: "Open-source is not a poor version of software engineering, but a private-collective approach to large-software systems." Quoting Suzanne Iacono, NSF program director: "The software-intensive systems in today's world have become so complex that we need every available design tool at our disposal. Open-source development has achieved some remarkable successes, and we need to learn from these successes as our systems become increasingly distributed, complex and heterogeneous." (PS: The complexity of scientific problems, and the benefits of collaboration, suggest that much of this research will transfer from open source to open access.)
Posted by
Peter Suber at 12/16/2003 02:08:00 PM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
