Re:Let me see your papers, let me see your source
by danieldk on Saturday July 24, 2010 @10:12AM
(#1543652)
Exactly. Some data in my field (NLP) is available, however usually at high fees.
Coming back to the topic of source code. I think there are three additional reasons source code is often not published:
1. Some scientists (I am trying to avoid making overgeneralizations) are bad programmers. Sometimes just enough hacks are stacked to produce results, but the result is not something to be particularly proud of.
2. Rinse and repeat. It's often possible to get more out of a discovery by applying it to multiple datasets. If the source is published, others could be eating your lunch.
3. There is a contract that avoids publishing source code.
My PhD project is financed by the Dutch national science foundation. Fortunately, since software developed in my project adds to existing work under the LGPL (creating derivative works), my work is under the LGPL too. Copyleft can help you if (3) applies.
I try to follow the same strategy as the author: make software public on Github once a paper is accepted.
Coming back to the topic of source code. I think there are three additional reasons source code is often not published:
1. Some scientists (I am trying to avoid making overgeneralizations) are bad programmers. Sometimes just enough hacks are stacked to produce results, but the result is not something to be particularly proud of.
2. Rinse and repeat. It's often possible to get more out of a discovery by applying it to multiple datasets. If the source is published, others could be eating your lunch.
3. There is a contract that avoids publishing source code.
My PhD project is financed by the Dutch national science foundation. Fortunately, since software developed in my project adds to existing work under the LGPL (creating derivative works), my work is under the LGPL too. Copyleft can help you if (3) applies.
I try to follow the same strategy as the author: make software public on Github once a paper is accepted.