> This original thread started because of an attempt by a lobbyist,
> allegedly speaking on behalf of of the biotechnology software industry, to
> have the NCBI's budget cut 50% so that it would not compete with commercial
> firms. Do you seriously suggest that 50% of the NCBI's budget goes towards
> "user interface toolkits"?
As I mentioned in a previous posting on bionet.announce, I have been
told that the 50% budget cut was proposed by a congressional aide
after reviewing NCBI's response to Congress in which they first
attempted (apparently unconvincingly to the aide) to justify their
current funding allocation.
I never in *any* of my postings suggested that 50% of NCBI's budget
was devoted towards user interface development, nor did I support
cutting their budget by 50%. These *repeated* attempts to skew my
meaning are really getting irritating.
Regarding the other points raised, I think that Tom Schneider and I
have seen eye-to-eye on the interface issue in another posting and
there is no need to rehash them yet again.
I could also attempt to fight the "innovation" battle but then we
would probably get bogged down into discussions about the definition
of "innovation" (e.g., how many sequence analysis algorithms have
simply been adopted from previous computer science research that was
originally intended for other purposes??), so I will politely decline
that challenge.
Dave Kristofferson
