Question about the use of Folding@Home produced data

[tokiwarthoot]

I know this is a support forum but I didn't know where to ask this.

The results and data produced and submitted by us with folding@home are submitted into the public domain or otherwise made freely and publicly available?

I don't want to contribute to a private project from which, for example, a privately patented cure for cancer may be developed so some millionaire can get even wealthier from the pain and suffering of others.

Can someone enlighten me about this matter?
A link that explains how if at all the data we collect and generate is made publicly and freely available?

[7im]

Yes, results and papers are published openly.

Welcome to the forum, but you might start by looking at the Results link on the FAH homepage.

[k1wi]

Often results are produced in the form of journal articles that require paid access, for varying lengths of time following publication.

But that's not a folding@home issue so much as it is a wider academic issue, and very different to private patented cures.

[7im]

Very few of the 100+ papers are still under paid access, only the most recent.

And you can visit most any municipal or collegial library and access those same recent papers at no cost.

[Jesse_V]

Yes the data sets are available upon request, and some can be already downloaded, for example https://simtk.org/home/foldvillin. They don't sell the results, and they've collaborated with other research groups and released some of F@h's key parallelization code. See http://folding.typepad.com/news/2008/04 ... e-and.html. Things are very open. For proof of this, see http://folding.stanford.edu/English/FAQ-main#ntoc4:

Unlike other distributed computing projects, Folding@home is run by an academic institution (specifically the Pande Group, at Stanford University's - Chemistry Department), which is a nonprofit institution dedicated to science research and education. We will not sell the data or make any money off of it.

Moreover, we will make the data available for others to use. In particular, the results from Folding@home will be made available on several levels. Most importantly, analysis of the simulations will be submitted to scientific journals for publication, and these journal articles will be posted on the web page after publication. Next, after publication of these scientific articles that analyze the data, the raw data of the folding runs will be available for everyone, including other researchers, here on this web site.

Last I heard, the PG is dealing with hundreds of terabytes of data from F@h, so its obviously difficult for them to make everything up for download. Instead, the most popular data sets are directly downloadable.

[tokiwarthoot]

If the papers are being released for free access then I'm all for the project.

i'll start using it and contributing then

thx everybody for the responses

[Jesse_V]

If the papers are being released for free access then I'm all for the project.

i'll start using it and contributing then

thx everybody for the responses

Here's a reply from Dr. Pande: viewtopic.php?f=16&t=19643&p=197898#p197898

A few comments:

* "not all the papers can be accessed for free". Due to new NIH rules, all papers have to be free, but *after* a year. This is the way science works and I unfortunately can't change how peer reviewed journals work single handedly. But, NIH's power has led to this compromise, which I think is reasonable (journals get something, but the papers are eventually out there to everyone without a fee). Also, note that essentially all scientists (at Universities and companies) have free access to these journals, due to institutional subscriptions. Finally, note that we (the scientists, member of the FAH team, etc) don't see any money when the journals sell the papers (don't get me started about that one, but again it's how science works and not something I can change).

* "And where is the raw data runs?" We have been making these available in general on request and in cases where people ask for data sets repeatedly (eg https://simtk.org/home/foldvillin), we make them available on a website linked from folding.stanford.edu. The big problem is hosting a web site with terabytes of data – it makes sense only to do that in cases where there is sufficient demand that we can't handle it individually.

[7im]

And again, at a library that subscribes to those journals, there is no charge to view them. So essentially, they are ALL free to view, assuming you live near a larger municipal or university library.

Stanford provides it to the public journals free of charge. Traditionally, the Journals charge for publication costs for all "free" information.

[tokiwarthoot]

Yeah it seems to be the standard "cycle of availability" (for calling it some way) for peer reviewed journals.
In that case it's cool, or at least, as cool as it gets.