Open Source Biotechnology Project

Copyright (c) 2003 Janet Hope, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT 0200. Verbatim copying and distribution of this site is permitted in any medium, provided this notice is preserved.

Open Source

Introduction

Open source licensing is a concept that has evolved in the context of software development. The reason for looking at open source licensing in connection with problems of access to research tools in biotechnology is that these problems are not confined to the biotechnology arena. Like biotechnology research tools, computer software frequently has economic and social value both as a saleable commodity in itself and as a tool for further development. But the ability to use existing software as a base for useful innovation is often limited by a combination of secrecy and restrictive copyright licensing terms. The idea here is that by looking at ways in which the software development community has managed access issues, it may be possible to devise new approaches that can help overcome problems of access to proprietary research tools in biotechnology that are associated with proliferating intellectual property rights and high transaction costs (described by Heller and Eisenberg as "the tragedy of the anticommons").

The present study goes beyond open source-style licensing in biotechnology as a way of improving access, however. One way to look at tensions over access to and freedom to operate with biotechnology research tools is to acknowledge that over the past 20 years, life sciences research has been in transition from an academic environment with generous public funding to an environment in which it is expected to fund itself by engaging with the wider exchange economy. The question for biotechnology researchers, therefore, is how can for-profit activities necessary to support science in the face of declining public funding coexist with the culture of sharing and openness that (according to sociological and economic theory) promotes good science?

By looking at open source business models, we are looking at ways in which another group of scientists -- computer scientists -- have answered that question. The hacker community, sustained by "free" copyright licences, has been described as a gift culture that can operates in a zone of economic surplus, where basic needs are already met. Open source business models show how, under the right conditions, this gift culture can sustain itself within a material-scarcity exchange economy. In other words, the problem that open source strategies appear to solve is precisely the problem with which biotechnology researchers are now struggling. Open source could help the biotechnology industry move beyond using intellectual property as a way of making money by not sharing the fruits of scientific labour, to using intellectual property to support sharing while still making money.

As noted in the introduction to this website, these pages are not intended to advocate for the adoption of open source-style business strategies for biotechnology research organisations. They are merely meant to suggest that these ideas are worth considering as a complement to existing approaches to problems of access to proprietary research tools in biotechnology. The aim is to progress from perceiving problems in the biotechnology sphere (of difficulties for researchers getting access to and freedom to operate with proprietary research tools) to seeing that similar kinds of problems have been at least partially resolved through the use of open source licensing in the computer software context, and then to thinking about whether there might be some way of translating these solutions back into the biotech arena. All comments welcome!

What is open source?
Open Source as a business model
Open source biotechnology?

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