Folks, I have made a tough decision. Like many of you, I believe
that PyMOL has the potential to become an effective software tool for
bioinformatics, structural biology, computational chemistry,
cheminformatics, and Science education. However, by myself, working in
my
spare time, I can not bring this project to fruition. The task is too
large, and I am just one very busy guy.
For much of the past year, I have been soliciting donations for the
project as well as outside assistance in the hopes that sufficient
resources would materialize to enable the effort to grow. While key
contributions have come in via license purchases from companies such
as Pfizer, Incyte, and Scherring-Plough, the aggregate response has been
insufficient to warrant further pursuit of a purely volitional funding
model.
Hi Warren:
I am sorry to hear this, but understand. I spend a lot of time worrying
about which 7-11 I will have to rob to pay my mortgage.
I do want to suggest however that some of us are only gearing up to the
point where we can participate. I hadn't heard of pymol until a few
months ago, really only started to grok it to the small extent that I
have a few weeks ago (and thus have come to realize its value) and fully
intend to purchase an academic license as a gesture of support as soon
as the NIH cuts me a check. Meanwhile I am also learning python as well
as how to build cocoa interfaces in OS X with the hope that I (or some
hapless grad student) will be able to make a meaningful contribution to
developing at least ancillary functionality for the program, like an OS
X interface (this might be possible by the way thanks to the pyObjC
project, if anyone is interested http://sourceforge.net/projects/pyobjc
or via jython). I'll happily support this project to the best of my
abilities, which, currently, aren't that great (I have a small group and
correspondingly small amounts of funding). I am sure others in a better
position than I will too as soon as word gets around.
On a slightly more cynical level, crystallographers can get o for free,
and will probably just stick with that unless a free pymol could
approximately match its functionality. I think once that happens and
people begin to overcome the inertial barrier to learning something new
(I've used o and before that frodo since about 1988 and I still don't
think I ever really learned it properly) and realize that it is in fact
easier to use that the alternatives, the interest, collaborations and
donations will improve. I'm not trying to talk you out of your decision
but urge you to think about its timing.
Finally, please realize that many of us email "complaints" or bug
reports to be helpful, not because we are demanding immediate
solutions. In addition, people are most vocal about what isn't working
on a problem-oriented bb. This shouldn't be interpreted as a lack of
fundamental gratitude for all of your hard labor. As some of the rest
of us learn what is going on, hopefully we can take some of the pressure
off you to answer every question.
Programmers are really the unsung heros of crystallography, and they are
the ones that make it possible for idiots like me who can't program
their way out of a wet paper bag to do (what I hope is) interesting and
productive science. I've often been amazed that crystallography has
managed to maintain a free-software eithic (mosflm, ccp4, etc.) May I
suggest that you apply to the NIH for a small business grant or
something like that? I would happily contribute to the proposal, if I
could provide anything meaningful, and I am sure that is the case with a
lot of our colleagues. My guess is that you and pymol would be
excellent candidates for funding.
All the best,
Bill Scott
William G. Scott
Associate Professor
Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
and The Center for the Molecular Biology of RNA
Sinsheimer Laboratories
University of California at Santa Cruz
Santa Cruz, California 95064
USA
phone: +1-831-459-5367 (office)
+1-831-459-5292 (lab)
fax: +1-831-4593139 (fax)
-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
Version: 3.12
GS dpu s:+ a C--- U*--- P+ L+ E--- W-- N o-- K- w--
O- M+ V- PS+++ PE-- Y+ PGP-- t- 5- X R* tv-- b+++ DI++ D----
G-- e++++ h---- r+++ y++++
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