Should software hold data hostage?
Software tools have become an indispensable part of modern biology, but issues surrounding propriety file formats and closed software architectures threaten to stunt the growth of this rapidly expanding area of research. In an effort to ensure continuous software upgrades to provide a continuous income stream, some software companies have resorted to holding the user?s data hostage by locking them into proprietary file and data formats. Although this might make sense from a business perspective, it violates fundamental principles of data ownership and control. Such tactics should not be tolerated by the scientific community. The future of data-intensive biology depends on ensuring open data standards and freely exchangeable file formats. Compared to the engineering and chemistry fields, computers are a relatively recent addition to the arsenal of biological tools. Thus the pool of potential users of biology-oriented software is comparatively small. Biology itself is a broad field with many sub-disciplines, such as neurobiology, biochemistry, genomics and cell biology. This creates the need for task-oriented software tools that necessarily have a small user base. Simultaneously, the task of developing software has become more complex with the need for multi-platform software and increasing user expectations of sophisticated interfaces and a high degree of usability. Writing successful software in such an environment is very challenging, but progress in biology will increasingly depend on the success of companies and individuals in creating powerful new software tools. The trend to open source software could have an enormous impact on biology by providing the large number of specialized analysis tools that are required. Indeed, in the field of bioinformatics, open source software has become pervasive, largely because of the high degree of computer skill necessary for workers in this field. For these tools to be usable by non-specialists, however, requires the development of facile user interfaces and robust environments. This is where some companies have provided real value to the community, building on the foundation of open source software. Outside of genomics and bioinformatics, there is still a critical need for software tools, particularly in areas such as imaging, biochemistry and cell signaling. The computer skills of investigators in these fields is generally more rudimentary, and thus the open source options are much more limited. Commercial software dominates these areas, but open source has the potential to contribute more in the future.
- Research Organization:
- Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC05-76RL01830
- OSTI ID:
- 15020895
- Report Number(s):
- PNNL-SA-42214; TRN: US200521%%313
- Journal Information:
- Nature Biotechnology, Vol. 22, Issue 8
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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