Comments on: The Blue Obelisk Movement http://geoffhutchison.net/blog/archives/2005/06/30/the-blue-obelisk-movement-2/ Geoff Hutchison's personal weblog on chemistry, nanotechnology, science, books, life and software development -- in no particular order. Fri, 16 May 2008 07:58:50 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5.2-alpha By: Geoff http://geoffhutchison.net/blog/archives/2005/06/30/the-blue-obelisk-movement-2/#comment-748 Geoff Wed, 17 Aug 2005 00:18:17 +0000 http://geoffhutchison.net/blog/?p=61#comment-748 Egon - I think the funding will come. The NSF has been recently talking strongly about open "cyberinfrastructure" which certainly implies some academic funding towards such activities. On the scale of a research grant, spreading Blue Obelisk and its components will be cheap. (Pressing CDs is a great idea and a few hundred isn't that expensive.) Obtaining money from industry may also be possible -- a variety of open software development manages it. The question is how to gain the right contacts for this. I suspect time and better networking will help. And of course constant discussions and presentations (like Peter describes above) are critical. I consider software development as "outreach" and just good for the community -- but I'm willing to talk software in addition to my key research. A point I try to make again and again is that Open Babel and other Blue Obelisk activities <strong>enhance productivity</strong>. If we can spend 5% of our time to make the remaining 95% more productive, our core research always benefits. Egon -

I think the funding will come. The NSF has been recently talking strongly about open “cyberinfrastructure” which certainly implies some academic funding towards such activities. On the scale of a research grant, spreading Blue Obelisk and its components will be cheap. (Pressing CDs is a great idea and a few hundred isn’t that expensive.)

Obtaining money from industry may also be possible — a variety of open software development manages it. The question is how to gain the right contacts for this. I suspect time and better networking will help.

And of course constant discussions and presentations (like Peter describes above) are critical. I consider software development as “outreach” and just good for the community — but I’m willing to talk software in addition to my key research. A point I try to make again and again is that Open Babel and other Blue Obelisk activities enhance productivity. If we can spend 5% of our time to make the remaining 95% more productive, our core research always benefits.

]]> By: Egon Willighagen http://geoffhutchison.net/blog/archives/2005/06/30/the-blue-obelisk-movement-2/#comment-747 Egon Willighagen Mon, 15 Aug 2005 06:28:48 +0000 http://geoffhutchison.net/blog/?p=61#comment-747 What we need is funding to set up activities important to spreading our word. E.g. to make a live CD with open source chemoinformatics software and data sets, which we can spread whenever we are on conferences. What we need is funding to set up activities important to spreading our word. E.g. to make a live CD
with open source chemoinformatics software and data sets, which we can spread whenever we are on conferences.

]]> By: Peter Murray-Rust http://geoffhutchison.net/blog/archives/2005/06/30/the-blue-obelisk-movement-2/#comment-723 Peter Murray-Rust Sat, 16 Jul 2005 14:32:44 +0000 http://geoffhutchison.net/blog/?p=61#comment-723 Presented Open Chemistry at two meetings - US goverment chemical databases (at Fredrick NCI) and also at School of Informatics Indiana University. Have got a good number of positive responses as well as the normal sceptics. Highlighted the Blue Obelisk at both. P. Presented Open Chemistry at two meetings - US goverment chemical databases (at Fredrick NCI) and also at School of Informatics Indiana University. Have got a good number of positive responses as well as the normal sceptics. Highlighted the Blue Obelisk at both.

P.

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