Dan Weinreich (dmw at mcz.harvard.edu) wrote :
>Phil:
>>Would it be an immense time-sink for you to develop and post a public
>domain New-ABI-format-to-Old-ABI-format converter? From what you say, ABI
>would give you the technical details for free, so long as you don't also
>incorporate them into your (very fine) for-profit product.
>>I agree that it's shortsighted of ABI not to support development of
>products which add value to theirs without cutting into their market.
The problem here is that ABI don't give out details of their file formats;
what they supply is a c library to which you can link your code. This is
free, but you have to sign an agreement not to distribute any software which
uses it beyond your immediate site. Thus I can solve my own immediate problem
but not supply the solution to others. I suspect it will just have to be
done the hard way as usual :-)
Phil Taylor | MRC Reproductive Biology Unit
| Centre for Reproductive Biology
| 37 Chalmers Street
mbplt at uk.ac.dl.seqnet | Edinburgh EH3 9EW
ptaylor at hgmp.mrc.ac.uk | Scotland.
