Open data, closed data, or the question about intellectual properties

Now, this poses quite a challenge: different licenses, different copyright holders, requirements to provide access to the source (for the Open data), etc, all in one system. Quite a challenge indeed, because ChemSpider is now required to track copyright and license information for each bit of information. [chem-bla-ics]

... these techniques have traditionally been considered the realms of scientists from different disciplines, differences in computer systems and terminology provide a barrier to effective communication. This is probably the single most challenging problem that chemoinformatics must solve. [Hann/Green]

Do you know Open Data, Open Source, and Open Standards (ODOSOS)? I am one of the blue obelisk co-founders, but I think I have to take a slightly distant position now. I am not agreeing in all the recent statements made by single individuals, therefore can some statements not reflect the community opinion in a democratic sense as far as I have read the number of responses. All things said in this blog are my private opinion and do not reflect the opinion of any community I am related to or the opinion of the company I am working for.

Pro

• Open to everybody: I think there is a clear positive effect of ODOSOS, but we have to be careful not to exaggerate the whole idea. I had never the intention to discourage people to join the community. The community must be open for everybody, and I seriously mean everybody! I do not care how much people can contribute to the community, but there should be the tendency that the whole community is making progress. And there are so many ways how to make progress ...
  
• Open must not be free: I strongly believe that 'open', means not 'free' of charge. If people want to charge for services or products, they should be allowed to do that. If people want recognition, give it to them. If people want to give things away for free or without being named, please do this for accelerating progress or for being unknown. Academic partners might not have enough money to buy licenses, and I never liked this when being in academia. This might be critical, since many (but not all) scientific brains are sitting in academia. I am now in industry, so I can not be one of those scientific brains anymore (Sorry, Peter: 'This is very depressing' for you)! On the other hand; it is always possible providing cheap academic licenses and more costly industrial licenses. Two very nice examples are the OpenEye tools and PyMOL. I will not discuss the 'open source' topic in this area again, because Warren and Matt had already taken different positions in 2005 (which is a little bit outdated).
  
• Increasing collaboration: One of the best examples being alive is Wikipedia, if you just look at the Alexa traffic ranking over the last years.
  
• Increasing standards: As highlighted by Egon might the molecule mining world profit from different services when talking to each other and when working together. I personally think this is in-line with the two introductory quotes. This is the major challenge and it does not matter where people are coming from or for which company they are working for. If people can not work together then 'break down barriers' and create standards for working together! This is true for everybody, even for people which are not ODOSOS advocates. So lets play together in our community sandbox ...
  

Neutral

• Patents: In contrast to Peter I believe that closed data and patents are crucial for any company. I see nothing bad in: 'Honor/money to whom is honor/money due'
  

  A patent is a set of exclusive rights granted by a state to a patentee for a fixed period of time in exchange for a disclosure of an invention.

  Again: 'open' must not be 'free', especially not because we are talking about a limited period. Maybe some people are in the luxurious position making idea gifts to others, some are not. If you think you can make those gifts then please send 800 million USD to a random 'open' bank account in the world. Following this video statement it is probably one in China or India and you should maybe go there, too. If you are then there, there is no risk for having an intellectual property shift. Though, shift might happen anyway

Contra

• Poor verification: Peter has the habit to highlight the negative impacts of services and publishers as done with eMolecules/Wiley and Chemspider. As it turned out later were several of his points poorly verified, causing some confusions and tensions. Antony solved this very professionally by writing a very long counterstatement about the ChemSpider service. Please avoid unverified statements from both sides, the ODOSOS activists and the non-ODOSOS believers. I think there is some truth on both aspects. Please lets work together, not against each other.
• Never use web-services and open source: Please be aware that some companies are not allowed in using web-services or open-source! You may ask why? Simply because nobody feels responsible for a secure data transfer. Just image an accident causes that an investment of 800 million USD gets lost, because another company has stolen your idea. If we all would be a happy open family nobody would care! Believe me, the last thing some people want is that everything becomes open. On the other hand are all people open to collaborate, if the security is guaranteed and the intellectual properties rights are clearly defined. So, dear ODOSOS activists, what are you doing to help answering those security questions and acknowledging the investments? Do not get me wrong, I am pro, but I am pro for both sides! I hope you are too!!!