There is much room for improvement in the way we carry out research. It seems that a debate has been started with initiatives such as Science in Transition or Science 2.0. I agree with many of the conclusions of those links. I think that they are quite successful at identifying the problems, and not so successful in looking for solutions.

Fortunately, the solutions already exist. All we have to do is to look at the thriving Free Libre Open Souce Software (FLOSS) ecosystem. FLOSS is extremely efficient. It advances very quickly with little resources. The participants in the ecosystem are very motivated and enjoy what they do. It is easy to identify geniuses, and also people with litle skills as myself. The nice part is that everyone can play a role in this ecosystem and everyone can feel useful. This does not mean that there are not discussions and problems in FLOSS. But overall seems to be a great approach for those that contribute and also for those that benefit.

The contributors to FLOSS publish their work right away, even when it is not finished or there are no guarantees that it is right. Publishing and sharing is unexpensive in the Internet. By sharing their work at an early stage, it is possible to gather feedback from the community and accelerate the progress of others.

The participants build up reputation by contribuing to the common resources and helping others. It is a win-win approach in which everyone benefits.

Why not adopting the principles of FLOSS and pushing for Free Libre Open Science (FLOS)?