May the source be with you: can a band of biologists who share data freely out-innovate the corporate researchers who hoard it?

Washington Monthly, July-August, 2002 by Nicholas Thompson

This transition doesn't just speed up the exchange of information; it also opens up opportunities for more contributors. Anyone with an Internet connection can see what Brent and Colman-Lerner did and follow up. As another example, Cornell biologist Susan McCouch works with researchers in the Ivory Coast, among other places, to identify and analyze rice genes that might have desirable traits, say, for drought resistance. She puts that information into an open database called Gramene.

Open-source still faces serious obstacles. For one, maintaining strict quality control standards can prove vexing: A project with lots of eyes working on it is bound to include a few bloodshot ones. Secondly, private companies can pay people to do all the grunt work required by giant projects; open-source projects usually can't.

But there are ways around these obstacles. Gilman for one plans to have a core group retest all of the major findings sent to his project, slowing down the process but keeping the junk out. As for the concern that no one will work on these projects, there are thousands of adequately paid, university-sponsored scientists able to pipe in, and many of these scientists are more enthusiastic about working on open-source projects than anything locked up and corporate. Colman-Lerner recently noticed a mislabeled gene in a soon-to-be-restricted database he often uses. "I'd tell them, if they weren't about to make money off me," he said, noting that he corrects public database errors. It is easier to simultaneously send multiple requests to GenBank's database than to Celera's equivalent because Kim Worley, an enterprising researcher at Baylor University, recognized the problem and wrote code to fix it--something Worley says she wouldn't and couldn't have done for a private company.

In the world of Linux programmers, the so-called "Linus' law" says that "given enough eyes, all bugs are shallow." Someone will find the answer if enough people work on a problem, are able to communicate, and if the information really can be kept free. To be sure, the fact that information can want to be expensive has pushed science forward in places. But if Gilman's right, the fact that information wants to be free will prove even more important in the coming years.

NICHOLAS THOMPSON is a Markle Fellow at the New America Foundation and a contributing editor of The Washington Monthly.