What's in a name?

Bika Lab Systems Pty Ltd and the Bika LIMSs


Lemoene, 4 January 2018 We were naive starting out in 2002, the Internet rocks still soft, when we named both project and company risking the start-up 'Bika', inspired by indigenous South African diversity. Later, difficult to quantify, BLS' influence on the project was starting to put new prospective developers off. Work that reached the Bika collective were subcontracted among the core devs or propositioned together. The distributed professional Bika LIMS teams on their own then grew strong enough to independently bid on LIMS contracts, and the laboratories did not get that we were equals. With the same name, either the project or founders' company had to change moniker. Earlier, Bika's Froid, Free Open Instrument Middleware and Android Samp, Free and Open sampling App proposals adopted a vendor neutral convention already. FOSS companies' equity almost entirely resides in their brand, the software is free. For the professional services model to work for them, service organisations require visibility, nobody really spends on marketing.	Bika Lab Systems had seven to ten times more sweat invested than any other group in Bika LIMS and the BLS board resisted a name change without this loss being addressed. Unjust given BLS carried all start-up risk and massive subsequent sweat investment. With lab prospects, the new ACME LIMS would've stood no chance - lab managers as a rule don't read code. Odoo pulled off a Project name change very successfully over the past 2 years and there is every reason Senaite will do the same. The code is in the hands of the next energetic generation, and built on Bika LIMS after all. Lemoene Stand by for T-shirts and hoodies, other paraphernalia, never had time for that!

Lemoene, 4 January 2018

We were naive starting out in 2002, the Internet rocks still soft, when we named both project and company risking the start-up 'Bika', inspired by indigenous South African diversity. Later, difficult to quantify, BLS' influence on the project was starting to put new prospective developers off.

Work that reached the Bika collective were subcontracted among the core devs or propositioned together. The distributed professional Bika LIMS teams on their own then grew strong enough to independently bid on LIMS contracts, and the laboratories did not get that we were equals.

With the same name, either the project or founders' company had to change moniker.

Earlier, Bika's Froid, Free Open Instrument Middleware and Android Samp, Free and Open sampling App proposals adopted a vendor neutral convention already.

FOSS companies' equity almost entirely resides in their brand, the software is free. For the professional services model to work for them, service organisations require visibility, nobody really spends on marketing.

Bika Lab Systems contributions to Bika Open Source LIMS

Bika Lab Systems had seven to ten times more sweat invested than any other group in Bika LIMS and the BLS board resisted a name change without this loss being addressed. Unjust given BLS carried all start-up risk and massive subsequent sweat investment. With lab prospects, the new ACME LIMS would've stood no chance - lab managers as a rule don't read code.

Odoo pulled off a Project name change very successfully over the past 2 years and there is every reason Senaite will do the same. The code is in the hands of the next energetic generation, and built on Bika LIMS after all.

Lemoene

Stand by for T-shirts and hoodies, other paraphernalia, never had time for that!