Software is science, in the sense that when developed in the course of computational science research, it can't be classified as "infrastructure" or "support". If a telescope is infrastructure for astronomy, then its equivalent or computational mathematics is a supercomputer. On the other hand, code produced to prove a theorem, simulate an explosion or study an image denoising algorithm is the subject-matter of the science being investigated.

We need this work to be recognized and time and effort invested in it must be rewarded by scholarship standards. On the other hand, when science is based on software foundations, the computational part of the research should be subject to validation by the scientific method. This implies that every program used in the elaboration of a research paper should, at least, be usable by referees, and if possible be publicly available is source form. Open Source software is part of the equation, but it is not sufficient to answer the questions raised here.