Eagle Genomics seeks strong response to new open source model
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| Open debate: Eagle Genomics co-founder, Richard Holland (left), discusses cloud computing, days before the company switched to full open source model |
In line with today's Document Freedom Day, the move does away with the need to register for site membership (the strings) to access the information, a strategy that the Babraham-based firm said provided unconvincing results and which also brings it closer to the ethic of free genomic data, a prominent feature in the field since the publication of the first human genome in 2000.
Eagle's genomic data management offering is intrinsically linked to the open source model, working on the basis that open source bioinformatics software gives unparalleled access to the very latest algorithms, data and techniques to use in R&D.
As a consequence and following what the company referred to as heated in-house discussions about the evils of marketing and requiring registration before free content can be downloaded, Eagle Genomics has "done the right thing" and moved to the new open model.
Richard Holland, Eagle Genomics co-founder, said it was a case of quid pro quo: "As an open source company we rely on things being freely available to use and try out without giving away our details (hardly any open source tools require registration before checking out the code or documentation).
"Therefore it seemed unfair that we didn't give something back to the community by making our own resources similarly freely available."
Holland also said that despite using the registration data of just a name and email address for targetted email campaigns and surveys with opt-out facilities, feedback indicated that in the open source world many people would rather skip the content entirely than provide their details.
"Likewise our email campaigns generate very low response rates so maybe the email addresses themselves are not too valuable (again, in this sector, people are very sensitive to bulk emails and are quick to classify even genuine messages as spam)", said Holland.
"Therefore by opening it up to be free we lose on building a list of target emails, but we gain by exposing our content (and hopefully our brand) to a wider audience which may then lead to more self-generated leads."
Material users can expect goes beyond information purely relating to bioinformatics, such as the most recent extended article ("our marketing people call it a white paper", says Holland) on cloud computing management.
The new model provides access to all Eagle white papers, the Eagle Browser, and all future content will now be linked directly from the downloads page and will no longer require registration to gain access to them.
Just how this fits into the wider growth of bioinformatics over the next decade may be a discussed next week at Eagle Genomics' first symposium.
