In article <m2n2y34vzu.fsf at presto.med.upenn.edu>,
jes at presto.med.upenn.edu (Joe Smith) writes:
[...]
>OTOH, with the advent of Linux and other cheap/free Unixes, the
>price/performance gap is completely gone. There is no longer a
>premium to be paid to run Unix. The usability gap is also shrinking
>as more commercial software becomes available.
>>So, I see a value in the desktop Unix market, in that there's more
>stability and more room to grow smoothly.
I don't know if this the good newsgroup for this discution, but...
Don't flame about an OS war also but...Most of the bioinformatician here
are developping lot of easy to use softwares in C that are free. There are
also some development tools (like NCBI toolkit) to make good
grafic interfaces for clients. Regarding that Linux is free of charge
and really stable (like a UNIX system can), we all have to think about
this solution.
Of course, it is always a question of intitute politic, and
we will never find help from commercial companies in that way. (I don't
know if this is clear?!?).
This is only my opinion in "why a commercial should make a
UNIX version of there softwares". If we pay less for the system and some
tools, then we can (perhaps) find money for (good) commercial
specific products.
(a little bit sleepy)Francois.
--
Francois Jeanmougin
Service de bioinformatique / bioinformatics service
IGBMC BP 163
67404 Illkirch France
tel : (33) 88 65 32 71
e-mail : jeanmougin at igbmc.u-strasbg.fr
"Tout ca m'est tergal, qu'il laine ou qu'il chandail" (STTELLLA)
