Neuroimaging, Software, and Communication by Edison Bicudo

Author:Edison Bicudo
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9789811370601
Publisher: Springer Singapore

2Type of funding body

The relatively limited diffusion of InVesalius, as well as the wide geographical reach of projects like AFNI, FreeSurfer, FSL, and SPM indicate that the international diffusion of neuroimaging software may be facilitated by the access to solid and consistent funding from agencies of dynamic countries. To be sure, it is crucial to rely on the work of talented programmers able to produce efficient and innovative systems. However, it is equally important to mobilize resources and infrastructure to underpin software development. At this moment, the potentialities of open source software become unevenly distributed, as they can be fully explored in certain places and institutions, not others. Researchers based in less dynamic countries are fully aware of these inequalities. For example, Dr. Ivanei Bramati (Laboratory of Image Processing, D’Or Research Institute, Brazil) told me that it is not worth developing toolboxes similar to those of wealthy universities of dynamic countries, because the competition cannot be gained. “If you look at the investment that those universities make in personnel, in development infrastructure, it is enormous. So it is very hard for us to wish to compete unless it is in some very specific niches that we find.” As a result, some institutions, and maybe whole countries, get excluded from the methodological discussions of some cutting-edge areas. In this way, the open dialogue that can flourish in open source software is eventually blocked by monetary questions. As claimed by Habermas (1996, pp. 39–40), “money” unleashes a kind of social integration that operates “‘behind the backs’ of participants,” rather than generating clear communication.

In this regard, it is interesting to come back to the issue of software flexibility, as discussed in chapterTwo. Rigid packages are those whose source code is tightly controlled, especially by companies. Flexible packages are those which can be easily accessed and modified, with quick and effective means available for the incorporation of coding contributions into the old codebase. Semi-flexible packages are those whose source code can be easily accessed and modified but whose development team prefers not to provide contributors with quick and effective means to turn external contributions into part of the official codebase. Survey 1 showed that whenever a development project relies on strong funding from national agencies, the resulting package tends to be semi-flexible. This is the case of FreeSurfer, FSL, and AFNI. All these three packages’ codebase can be easily downloaded, but coding modifications do not manage to gain publicity, as there are no quick and efficient means to incorporate them. As a result, the official toolboxes of these packages have, for the most part, been developed by the main development group, which eventually constitutes a sort of gatekeeper of code. In this way, semi-flexibility and solid financial support reinforce each other. Having focused on the financial aspect of software development, it is time to consider a second and equally relevant aspect: reputation.

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