In article <PMR.97Jan14103729 at unst.sanger.ac.uk> pmr at sanger.ac.uk (Peter Rice) writes:
>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.
Thanks for the plug Peter! For reference, the best location for docs
on the Staden Package is probably the web site (see my signature). The
newsgroup does exist, but seems to have a tiny core of people who post
questions and an almost non existant core of people who answer them!
Note that we make a BIG distinction between the cost to profit and
nonprofit organisations. Non profit is around 100 UK pounds per tape.
Note though that this is current UNIX only. We are looking into other
machines (windows and macs) and we think the programs could run quite
easily. However there's no guarantee that we'll port it or even that
it'll cost the same.
My personal opinion is that in an ideal world our software should be
free to other research organisations (especially to UK ones as, after
all, it is the UK tax payer who ultimately pays our salaries). In the
real world, partly due to our decision to charge minimal fees, we are
finding it _extremely_ hard to continue our own funding. The facts
have to be faced - the production of software has to be paid for. We
suffer exactly the same problems in finding money to write software as
other people do to find money to buy it, except for us the costs are
greater.
Food for thought...
James
--
James Bonfield (jkb at mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk) Tel: 01223 402499 Fax: 01223 213556
Medical Research Council - Laboratory of Molecular Biology,
Hills Road, Cambridge, CB2 2QH, England.
Also see Staden Package WWW site at http://www.mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk/pubseq/
