Don't Forget, Make the Software Platform-Independent

On its blog, the International Society for Computational Biology solicits comments (through April 15) from its members to update its policy statement on bioinformatics software availability, first proposed last June. Revised from the original 2002 statement, the recommendations include:  researchers, funding organizations, and publishers must "uphold the core principle of sharing methods and results;" grantors and publishers should "require statements of software availability in grant proposals and research reports;" and, "executable versions of the software should be freely available for research use to individuals at academic institutions."