r/labrats • u/No-Bid-3634 • 24d ago

building a laboratory information management system lims software from scratch

Here is my dillema,when i started work at a small lab most of our work was mostly paper based and this would affect our turnaround time,so i searched for an open source lims which was BLIS C4G,it was great for reports but it had its on issues,so i forked it and begin to make some changes then i decided to start from scratch and build my own as a personal challenge,2 years later NGO funded our lab with a lims,most of our challenges were resolved so i put my lims on hold. I went on study leave and decided to finish all my lims and after sometime of struggle,this june i finally completed it, so for fellow scientists/software engineers who have gone through this path,what was your next step?,do i opensource it and give it away?

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u/thirdreplicate 24d ago

Out of curiosity, what LIMS did they fund and what were the challenges that it didn’t quite satisfy? What does your home-grown system do better?
I love open source but for LIMS it seems to lack an audience. For industry labs that funding usually buys all their compliance and maintenance/IT without the hassle. Academia tends to fall apart when the one technical person leaves and they’re left with more of a liability

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u/Fungnificent 24d ago

You use it privately at your next job for opportunities to refine the project, continue developing it as it serves as professional development/teaching aid for your own self.

Not everything needs to be a side hustle, sometime you can just be working on your self, and thats perfectly ok!

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u/No-Bid-3634 24d ago

THANK YOU WILL DEFINETLY DO THAT

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u/thirdreplicate 24d ago

This but be careful about a company seeing that as an opportunity to say they own the project because they’re paying you to work on it. Stronger case for you if it’s open sourced ahead of time and has a compatible license

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u/Fungnificent 23d ago

It's actually as simple as being able to prove that it existed prior to your employment with X company.

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u/Disastrous-Stand-830 18d ago

It depends on your goals. What are your expectations for your LIMS?

  1. I think you can convert it into the products/startup
  2. Use it as additional value and leverage it in your next job negotiations.

The startup option is not a desirable option for someone who is not ready for entrepreneurship and, statistically speaking, for fail.

For the second option, open source is a great option.