In article <32DAA70A.49BF at gab.unt.edu> Chris Fields <cfields at gab.unt.edu> writes:
> Tim Cutts wrote:
> > If you're insisting on a separate copy of the software on everyone's
> > desk, of course it's going to cost a fortune. It's much more
> > cost-effective to buy a large UNIX box, and one copy of the software
> > to run on it. There's no such thing as a GCG site licence any more;
> > after all, you only need to buy one copy for each computer it will run
> > on, not for each computer it will be accessed from.
>> I just feel that the packages offer a lot for an amount above the
> budgets of most public institutions (unlike Cambridge, which, correct me
> if I'm wrong, is privately funded). Everything we do has to be approved
> by just about everybody but the governor, which is one reason why so
> many professors here have decided to buy their own software instead of
> being told that the "state can't afford it."
>> BTW, we don't have a Biocomputing Division; I have been pretty much
> designated the 'computer-man' of the department, so I guess I'm the
> Biocomputing Division (and a sorry one at that!!).
Sounds like that is the real problem. Where one department is responsible
for the biocomputing software, the total costs of the software licenses
and support make a big difference to purchasing decisions.
There is, of course, another general package available - from
Cambridge as it happens - from Rodger Staden. It even has its own
newsgroup (bionet.software.staden). You should check it out, in
addition to the others packages in this thread.
--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Peter Rice | Informatics Division,
E-mail: pmr at sanger.ac.uk | The Sanger Centre,
Tel: (44) 1223 494967 | Wellcome Trust Genome Campus,
Fax: (44) 1223 494919 | Hinxton, Cambridge, CB10 1SA,
URL: http://www.sanger.ac.uk/~pmr/ | England
