I will be giving a talk at Stanford on PyMOL and Open-Source this Wednesday, as part of the Computer Systems Laboratory Colloquium. This is a high-profile seminar series, which this year inludes leaders from Microsoft, Intel, CNN, IBM, VA Linux (now VA Software) and a variety of major universities. It should be very encouraging to everyone involved that the PyMOL phenomenon has been deemed important enough to merit coverage in such a venue.
If you are fortunate enough to live in the SF Bay Area, then please consider attending. Otherwise, be sure to check out the streaming version on the web, which should become available shortly after the talk. "Creating Open-Source Tools for Drug Discovery: How Free Software Might Save Your Life" 4:15PM, Wednesday, April 3, 2002 NEC Auditorium, Gates Computer Science Building B03 http://www.stanford.edu/class/ee380/Abstracts/020403.html Cheers, Warren Updated Abstract: Biology and medicine are being revolutionized by technological advances such as the human genome project, DNA chips, proteomics, automated synthesis, and high-throughput screening technologies. As a result, modern research is becoming profoundly information-driven and heavily software-dependent. However, many key software tools for analyzing biological and chemical information are not widely accessible because of continued adherence to traditional, restrictive approaches to software development and distribution. In order for biomedicial science to progress at an optimal pace, we must adopt a new paradigm for creation and dissemination of core computational technologies. During the past decade, while chemists and biologists were busy developing new experimental methods, computer scientists invented powerful new software technologies that will enable a more research-oriented approach to biomedical software. Specifically, collaborative internet development tools and modular dynamically-linked programming languages make open-source development a realistic and superior means by which scientists can create interoperable tools and share them in true academic spirit. The internet provides the foundation for formation of global communities around specific projects, and thanks to the proliferation of high-bandwidth connections, distribution costs have been reduced to near zero. The PyMOL molecular graphics system is a concrete and successful example of this new paradigm for scientific software development. Here I explore how PyMOL will specifically help to spread the open-source vision, and how open-source developers may be able to eventually assemble a complete platform for biomedical science through sponsored development of critical components. Also addressed are some of the economic issues surrounding open-source development, and the important role to be played by independent open-source software publishers.
