[OWW-Discuss] Tapping into open source / open access and doing slightly more

[ben lipkowitz]

Hello list,

It seems Bryan can't write an email in plain english, so I feel obligated 
to explain for him:

The idea behind what we're working on is to end up with a Matter Compiler 
- a set of programs hooked up to manufacturing equipment that can take any 
arbitrary design data and either build it with tools that you have, or 
make the tools to make the tools ... to make what you wanted in the first 
place.

Biology lends itself to this concept readily because it is already a 
digital manufacturing system; a unique DNA/RNA/peptide sequence is the 
same molecule no matter what enzyme put it together, unlike a car engine 
which may be different depending on which factory it came from or the 
phase of the moon. (Yeah yeah I know about isotopes.) Additionally, tools 
already exist to make short sequences of DNA, to replicate them into vast 
numbers in vitro or vivo, and we can do cool things with those pieces such 
as making DNA origami or aptamers.

At this point you may be thinking "I dont need some silly program to tell 
me how to send a sequence off to sequences-r-us!" but that isn't the 
point. The reason this makes sense for OWW is that in order to direct a 
computer to make the tools to make the tools, we must already have a 
formalized description of processes, properties, and functionality. So, 
provided that our system is general/abstract enough, it should be able to 
model complex biological systems as well. I intend to include that 
capability anyway because some biological systems are useful in a 
manufacturing context. I dont know what OWW needs, but maybe it doesn't 
even matter: since the design is open and decentralized, you can clone a 
local copy for yourself and put your super-secret academic research 
projects in it, or maybe even contribute it back to the rest of the world.
On the other hand, I'd hate to make a poor design decision in the early 
stages simply because I didnt know what you guys need.

> The people who are in the position to contribute the most in terms of 
> research projects are precisely the people who already have so much 
> going on they don't contribute to open-source software type projects.

This is a damn shame. What are they doing with all those research results 
anyway?

   -fenn