Red Hat: Let’s open source science next

Red Hat, ever the open source innovator, has kicked off a partnership with the University of North Carolina and the North Carolina Research Campus to help germinate the open source mindset and mechanics in biotechnology, bioinformatics, public policy, and healthcare research. At first glance, this is a local news announcement: Red Hat is supporting its local North Carolina community.

But the announcement is much bigger than this. As Joanne Rhode, Worldwide EVP of Operations at Red Hat, suggests, and as Allison echoes in her blog, this is about making open source bigger than software:

Our goal is to make collaboration and open source come to life in the field of clinical research. With our partners, we will identify specific projects where the sharing of information will lead to better, more accurate research. In turn this research will enable real-life solutions to be developed across both the public and private sector at the North Carolina Research Campus.

Now, in one sense, this is unnecessary, since science already operates (largely) along open source principles. Science only operates well to the extent that research can be falsifiable, in Popper’s terminology, which means that it must be testable (which, by extension, requires that the analysis/etc. must be open so that other scientists can replicate and test the same hypotheses).

But as more and more research becomes corporatized, instead of government or university-led, we’re in danger of losing “pure science.” Open source science mitigates against this.

Kudos to Red Hat for thinking outside the software box. Open source is a methodology and a mentality that is exceptionally useful well beyond software. It is something that will bring integrity and value to software. Surely, it can help to do the same in other areas, like clinical research.