Comments welcome - I'm getting a little bogged down... - Cameron Neylon

That's a very thoughtful introduction to OS! I would make a few suggestions - maybe spent a bit of time explaining where and when openness makes sense. For example for researchers and companies that depend upon intellectual property protection it probably is not in their best interest to disclose their research details quickly or any more than required by patent law. Contrast that to neglected disease work where OS does make sense. - Jean-Claude Bradley

I was going to come back to that at the end - in the bit on measuring outcomes. Do you think it needs to go at the top? One of the things worrying me at the moment is that it is all a bit negative - but the aim is to frame the problems and then propose routes forward at the end... - Cameron Neylon

Also if you are going to discuss electronic lab notebook systems that are not designed to be open, that covers a lot of territory - both commercial and open source software based. You'll have to word it in a way that is representative of the state of the art without doing a whole exhaustive review. - Jean-Claude Bradley

I'm excluding most of the available ELNs on that basis - might put in a sentence to that effect in the relevant paragraph - Cameron Neylon

Concerning mentioning the limitations of applicability of OS I would probably mention something brief near the start so people read it with that frame of reference. Most journalists writing on OS (especially ONS) have taken the approach of listing pros and cons. I don't view delineating the sphere of applicability as a "con" - it is just a parameter to consider. - Jean-Claude Bradley

JC - I've added a couple of sentences in fourth paragraph to this effect - Cameron Neylon

that works - Jean-Claude Bradley

Much more complete now - comments still welcome - I'm still working towards the positive bit for the end! - Cameron Neylon