Re: Staden Package and trev, its sequence viewer.
On Fri, Feb 10, 2006 at 03:27:19PM -0600, Malcolm Cook wrote :
> if you're working with ABI traces, see
> https://products.appliedbiosystems.com/ab/en/US/adirect/ab?cmd=catNavigate2&catID=600583&tab=Overview for
>
> The free Sequence Scanner Software enables you to view, edit, print and export sequence data generated using the Applied
> Biosystems Genetic Analyzers. The software generates graphically expressive reports on results.
>
Dear Malcolm,
Thank you for the link, but this software is closed source, which means
that it is impossible to package it for Debian. It also forbids some
commercial applications, and I intend to focus on software which allows
for-profit usage, because for-profit activities are what we spend most
of our time in our adult lives. Free software meets this requirements
(open source and unrestricted usage).
By the way, if you do not mind closed source software and own a
macintosh, you can have a look to 4peaks [1], which is the coolest trace
viewer ever made. It is based on a free library from the Staden
package, which allows derivatives to be distributed without the source
code.
The existence of this program supports to the idea that by packaging
EMBOSS and Staden, which provide low-level C libraries [2], we could
hope motivating open-source programmers to create free alternatives
oriented towards the end-user (trev, from the Staden package, is maybe
more for the power user who sequences routinely kilobases).
[1] http://www.mekentosj.com/4peaks/
[2] http://wiki.debian.org/DebianBioinformaticsLibraries
Best,
--
Charles Plessy
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