Log in
Site Map

Blog history. Same same but different

When I decided to start a fresh blog section, I took a quick trip down memory lane and scanned through the old collection of posts from our legacy site, and I am unsurprised at how fired up we were

Back then, every other article was a passionate defence or celebration of Open Source in laboratory informatics. We wrote about freedom from vendor lock-in, the power of community-driven development, transparency, and the real cost advantages. We were true believers, and we weren’t shy about it

Fast forward to today, and something has changed

Open Source has become so widely adopted in the broader tech world that it feels almost… normal. The excitement has quietened down. What was once a revolutionary movement with loud advocates has matured into standard practice for many organisations. In many ways, that’s a success story

But here’s an unfortunate side effect: the message about Open Source benefits has also quietened down - to the point where it does not reach those who can do with it most.

Small and medium-sized laboratories are often still stuck on error prone and time wasting spreadsheets. Not knowing that they could benefit with no licensing fees, full data ownership, flexibility to customise, easy ISO 17025 accreditation, affordable services, all the while avoiding vendor lock-in

The myth that “free” software will end up costing more persists, that open source is only for techies, or that it lacks the polish and support of commercial systems. These misconceptions haven’t disappeared

All are resolved by professionally supported projects using actively developed web platforms, like Bika on Plone.

We’ve moved from noisy advocacy to quiet delivery - and that’s mostly positive. But perhaps it’s time to speak up again, not with the same fiery rhetoric of the early 2000s, but with clear, honest stories from real labs

The benefits of professional Open Source haven’t gone away. They’ve become normal. The most powerful ideas don't need shoutin. Until someone reminds everyone why they mattered in the first place

Surviving links, it is good to see these still going strong!

Looked up from the old blog pages:

  • The SafariSeat. All terrain Open Source wheelchair for developing countries.

LinkedIn still carried meaningful discussions back then, some groups managed by proprietary vendors would not publish our posts

  • We countered with the LIMS Circus group, aiming to be both informative and provocative

Those were the days:)

Lemoene Smit, LIMS analyst. 4 April 2026