Blog post "Science Is Open Software" resurfaces on Hacker News
A researcher's essay arguing that open, reproducible software is inseparable from computational science gains fresh traction online.
What to know
- The essay's core claim: computational science is only legitimate if its software is open and reproducible, since scientific results must be testable and systematizable.
- Originally published around May 2025, the post regained attention after being resubmitted to Hacker News on 2026-09-18, reaching 85 points and 33 comments.
- The essay spread further via multiple independent Mastodon reposts, but no substantive comment content from the discussion was captured in the available material.
jepedersen.dk (blog author) Author of the essayGreg Wilson Quoted authority on scientific softwarejegp Hacker News submitter
How it unfolded 1 development · click the chart to see its coverage articlesposts
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Mastodon users share the essay to their networks
Automated and personal Mastodon accounts (h4ckernews@mastodon.social, hkrn@mstdn.social, marcoalopez@fediscience.org) reposted the article link and title, extending its reach beyond Hacker News.
“Nice read: Science is open software…”
— marcoalopez@fediscience.org -
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Nice read: **Science is open software ** https:// jepedersen.dk/blog/202505_rese arch/ # science # OpenScience # opensource
2 more of the top 3 · 13 posts in this stretch
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This article is correct but it bummed me out. It made me think of how much of science has been perverted into other goals, like medical science for example. The advancement of human health largely depends on corporate interests, and that is so insane to my brain it hurts to think about. very few independent scientists can research anything because…
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Science Is Open Software L: https:// jepedersen.dk/blog/202505_rese arch/ C: https:// news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4 9762687 posted on 2026.09.18 at 22:21:35 (c=1, p=3)
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background
Essay resubmitted to Hacker News, reaches front page — User jegp posted the essay to Hacker News; it climbed to 85 points with 33 comments and was picked up by the HN Frontpage RSS feed.
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background
Author publishes essay linking open software to the scientific method — The post argues that computational science requires open, reproducible software because scientific claims must be testable and systematizable, likening undisclosed code to a physics paper that withholds its equations.
Also covered reported alongside — the timeline has no entry for these yet
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2 outlets Science Is Open Software
first by HN Best, 5d ago · also HN Frontpage
What people are saying 10 voices from 1 site · best of 13 · verbatim
- Sep 20
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In an utopia, yes, but I have raised the argument also elsewhere: who wants to be a maintainer of a paper forever? So, yes, science is indeed a lot like open source software, but more like the write-only software platforms and repositories are full of. Replication is also a lot more important than reproducibility in most fields and for most…
- Sep 19
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An interesting thought experiment, but I'm not sure I follow the reasoning of these two statements, which is the crux of why open software fits this mold.1. Reproducible, meaning executable, as well as modifiable, and 2. Reliable, meaning that the results are consistently trustworthyWhy does modifiable fit reproducible. Modifiable fits the open…
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100% disagree! Do not mix and cherry pick terms and definitions to make your point. That's not scientific -) Take e.g. a look in https://opensciencemooc.eu/ and check a nice accepted handbook like "The Turing Way" [1][1]
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I try to do something like this with my publications, and encourage others to. My goal is to have the pipeline from raw data to complete figures and manuscript in a repository, with cached data for computationally expensive analysis and for stochastic simulation results, and the option for the user to just use those or run the full pipeline, with…
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I agree with the general sentiment, but there's one major caveat. We should implement reproducible programs on top of a virtual machine spec like JVM or WebAssembly rather than replicate the entire environment. It's more practical to do and doesn't push software towards further centralization. Let people use whatever OS and VM implementation they…
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Science should be more like this, in current times, yes.But until much of academia is burned to the ground, or until science can be properly separated from modern academia, this will never be so. The current academic incentives are all wrong: low-quality research is rewarded and results in publications, whereas high-quality research (that takes…
- Sep 18
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> Every result is instantly reproducible. When you read a paper claiming that a new drug reduces symptoms by 30%, you click a link and watch the exact analysis run in your browser. The data processing, statistical tests, and visualizations execute in seconds using the same environment the authors used—preserved perfectly through reproducible…
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Nice read. I believe that traditional software is a great way to showcase the proofs when it comes to physics and mathematics. You can easily code up a theorem in a language of your choice and justify that 'Okay, the output matches the expected value'.I am particularly fascinated by labs like DeepMind [https://deepmind.google/science/]. The recent…
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> modern science is synonymous with open source software.Another problem with reproducibility is the openness of the underlying data. Many academics are terrified of giving away the golden goose and the software is often useless without the data.However many scientists do work openly, e.g. The Journal of Open Source Software:
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Science is open, but science is not software and software definitely not science.