The Bioboxes project now has their first formal publication, with the software being described today in the journal GigaScience:

Bioboxes: standardised containers for interchangeable bioinformatics software

I love the concise abstract:

Software is now both central and essential to modern biology, yet lack of availability, difficult installations, and complex user interfaces make software hard to obtain and use. Containerisation, as exemplified by the Docker platform, has the potential to solve the problems associated with sharing software. We propose bioboxes: containers with standardised interfaces to make bioinformatics software interchangeable.

Congratulations to Michael Barton, Peter Belmann, and the rest of the Bioboxes team!

Updated 2015-10-15 18.18: Added specific acknowledgement of Peter Belmann.