Experts promote encouraging free software and open science in the DR

SANTO DOMINGO. - The use of free software in scientific research and open science represents a strategy of transparency, collaboration and democratization in the construction of knowledge, which in the Dominican Republic should be used to the maximum. The participants in the seminar reached that conclusion "Free Software and Open Science", held during the XVI International Congress of Scientific Research carried out by the Ministry of Higher Education, Science and Technology (MESCyT).

At the symposium, under the direction of Dr. Manuel Madé, researcher professor and coordinator of Management and Scientific Dissemination of the Instituto Tecnológico de Santo Domingo (INTEC), participated doctors Miguel A. Quintanilla, emeritus professor at the University of Salamanca and Jesús García Barahona, researcher and free software disseminator from the Rey Juan Carlos University, both from Spain.

From Chile was the engineer Carlos Allende, director of Open Web Application Security Project-Chile, specialist in pentesting and cybersecurity, and on behalf of the Dominican Republic, participated Dr. Andrés Merejo, expert in philosophy of technology and cyberworld and research professor at the Autonomous University of Santo Domingo (UASD); the lawyer Dionisio Grullón, mathematician and president of the Dominican Free Software Foundation (FDSL) and the engineer Osvaldo Larancuent, president of the Dominican chapter of the Internet Society and coordinator of the master's degree in Cybersecurity at INTEC.

The panelists indicated that in the last three decades science has experienced an accelerated advance concomitantly with the development of computing and informatics, in which the leading role of the use of software in research processes and the dissemination of knowledge is evidenced.

Quintanilla pointed out that the management of science and technology becomes a political priority, and the design of policies that allow and promote their access should be considered a moral obligation.

During his speech, González stated that “open science practices (openscience) aim to make scientific research more transparent, more reproducible, more reusable and, ultimately, more reliable. These practices include open access publishing (open access) of the results and other materials related to the investigation. And in many cases, among these materials is the software used, which is very often essential for the research process ”.

Likewise, Dionisio Grullón argued that the government's efforts to democratize free software and open science are very cosmetic. "State institutions do not risk investing in (R + D + i), where the requested requirements are for yesterday, suits tailored to proprietary software, even having a technology department in their areas, as support for proprietary solutions that they have acquired by paying licenses of millions of pesos ”.

In this regard, Manuel Madé spoke of the need for teachers to know the difference between free and proprietary software and, even more important, that they be able to transmit this knowledge to their students is a pedagogical action.

On his side, Andrés Merejo pointed out that open science not only seeks that research and innovation systems are readjusted to the world of cybernetics and the virtual, but that there is also access, dissemination and evaluation of science in all its dimension.

Osvaldo Larancuent considered that the very nature of the Internet promotes interconnection between all participants and the construction of different digital ecosystems, "in general those related to collaboration, facilitate the creation of local content, derived from global findings or knowledge, applied to the search for timely solutions ”.

To see the exhibitions you can visit the link: https://bit.ly/xvicongreso