Adieu, NanoCAD list?
from the roads-not-taken? dept.
NanoCAD represented a significant initiative to promote open development of software for molecular nanotechnology. Will Ware, the maintainer of the NanoCAD list, is now planning to discontinue the list, given the lack of traffic and his need to change ISPs.
This raises the question, is there enough interest to continue initiatives to develop software, and associated standards and licensing, that could be freely and openly shared by those interested in MNT?
Read More on the question of the NanoCAD list and initiatives for open source development of MNT.
Will Ware,
Your note about discontinuing the NanoCAD list raises some important issues. The Nanocad list played a valuable role in sharing ideas about software relevant for nanotech development. A list lives or dies by the interest and initiative of its members, and from that point of view it is quite fair to take the recent lack of traffic as a justification for not continuing the list. However I do think there are questions worth asking about whether there will be any continuing initiatives aimed at promoting either specific software for molecular nanotechnology, or, more generally, open standards and licensing arrangements that encourage collaborative efforts on software for MNT. Since I think these issues deserve discussion, I'm sending this reply to the NanoCAD list, and also posting a note on Nanodot.
A pro-active effort to develop open software and related standards and licensing, that can be freely shared and enhanced by a community of those interested, could help make the development of software (and hardware) for MNT better, faster, safer and more accessible. It could reduce the risk of monopolistic corporate dominance of the technology. It could also help avoid "anticommons" problems of ideas fragmented into too many tiny inaccessible bits of intellectual property. I analyzed some of these issues in the paper I wrote for last year's MNT conference on "Open Sourcing Nanotechnology Research and Development: Issues and Opportunities." The conclusion I came to there, and which still seems valid, is that there are important opportunities that should be pursued for open source development of nanotech. The conference version of the paper has now been published in Nanotechnology Vol 12, issue 3, pages 198-210, (free access to latest issue available by registration at www.iop.org). An updated html version of the paper is available at:
http://www.cm.ksc.co.th/~bruns/open_mnt.htm
There is increasing concern with how intellectual property issues could affect the development of nanotech. The PriorArt.org initiative being supported by the Foresight Institute offers a relatively easy and effective way to put ideas into the public domain. Molecular modeling software developed for other purposes is relevant for MNT efforts, and Eugene Lietl's postings on the NanoCAD list have been very useful for pointing out what's happening with such packages. However neither of those does much to promote MNT-specific efforts. There are examples, such as homebrew personal computers and GNU/Linux, of initiatives that have profoundly influenced the development of better, cheaper and more accessible technologies and the same might be possible for MNT.
It seems worth asking whether further development of software relevant to MNT will just be left up to existing separate commercial and academic efforts, or whether there is enough interest to continue initiatives to develop software, and associated standards and licensing, that could be freely and openly shared and developed by a community of those concerned with MNT?
Bryan Bruns
BryanBruns@BryanBruns.com
www.BryanBruns.com
At 6:32 PM -0400 8/29/01, Will Ware wrote:
I am changing ISPs due to reliability problems with world.std.com. I am not planning to maintain the nanocad mailing list, as there has been approximately zero traffic on it in recent memory. Eugene Leitl's notes have been going out on the nsg-d mailing list, which also sometimes carries other interesting stuff, and which I recommend to anybody who feels this will create a profound void in their life.
If anybody is interested in taking over the mailing list and hosting it elsewhere, or if anybody objects to the mailing list being taken over by anybody else, now is the time to speak up.
– Will Ware
———————————–+———————
22nd century: Esperanto, geodesic | Will Ware
domes, hovercrafts, metric system | wware@world.std.com
August 30th, 2001 at 8:30 PM
an alternative to the list
The issues Bryan identifies are important ones, and there should be places to discuss them. I have been tinkering with a nanotech-oriented wiki (a form of reader-editable collaborative discussion software) which I can operate via my new, faster, more reliable ISP, available at http://willware.net:8080/cgi-bin/nanowiki/wiki.cgi .
Originally my intent was to provide something like accessible not-too-technical nanotech courseware to casual visitors. But wikis are very flexible and there is certainly a place for the kinds of more involved issues of intellectual property, cooperation, and freedom that Bryan raises.
I would be delighted to offer my wiki to host these kinds of discussions, if folks are interested in using it. And, obviously, Nanodot is also a good place for these kinds of issues.
August 31st, 2001 at 6:49 PM
Some interest in Fungimol lately
Lately there have been some nibbles of interest in Fungimol which is now hosted at SourceForge. In the past, Fungimol was briefly discussed on the nanocad list. However, unless there is some other system that people are also wanting to discuss, the fungimol-devel mailing list is probably sufficient. I didn't post to NanoCAD yet because we don't have a Minimum Publishable Increment yet, in my opinion.
The almost unavailable resource that limits all this is people who are able and willing to write code and aren't too busy working for a living.
September 1st, 2001 at 12:11 PM
Attracting contributors
Glad to hear that you are still working on Fungimol and that there is some wider interest. It seems to me that setting things up via SourceForge is not only good practice but significant enough to at least post a brief notice (like your note above) on some of the nanotech lists.
A notice would show that Fungimol is a live ongoing project, and might even attract attention from students, people with work-related needs for such tools and other potential contributors.