Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
have access. All of the advantages of an internal installation are preserved,
but with much less overhead in maintaining the system. Our experience
of the use of Utopia in industry has suggested that the team-based sharing
is of greatest initial interest. Industry scientists urgently need tools to help
them manage information more effectively, and to manage it as a team.
Deciding on an appropriate license for Utopia Documents has been an
interesting and complex endeavor. With the vast majority of its funding
so far having come from commercial bodies (primarily publishers and the
pharmaceutical industry), rather than from research grants or the public
purse, we do not feel the same ethical imperative to make the software
open source as we might do had the development been funded through
grants derived from public funds. Yet, as academics, we nevertheless fi nd
openness extremely attractive. The diffi culty arises when the ideals of
openness meet the reality of fi nding sustainable income streams that will
allow us to continue the research and development necessary to maintain
Utopia Documents as a useful and powerful tool for scientists, whether
in commercial or academic environments. What has become clear is that
very few of our end-users care about the detailed licensing of the software,
as long as the tool itself is robust, reliable, freely available, and has some
plausible longevity.
Although it is notionally possible to sustain software development and
research on the back of 'consultancy' associated with open-source
software, there appear to be relatively few concrete examples of where this
has worked as a long-term solution for keeping a research team together.
Our current model, therefore, is one in which the core software is - and
will remain - free to use without restriction (in both academic and
commercial settings), while we retain the rights to customize the tool for
commercial environments, or to provide specifi c services to publishers. As
academics, fi nding a model that both sustains our research and provides a
freely available resource for the community and 'the good of science' has
been challenging on many levels; we are nevertheless optimistic that our
current approach provides a reasonable balance between long-term
sustainability and free availability, and are excited about the potential of
Utopia Documents as a means of making more of the scientifi c literature.
15.5 References
[1] Attwood TK, Kell DB, Mcdermott P, Marsh J, Pettifer SR and Thorne D.
Calling international rescue: knowledge lost in literature and data landslide!
Biochemical Journal
, Dec 2009.
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