Please consider free source code for SignalP
Hello,
I'm writing you on behalf of the Debian Med team which is a group inside
Debian with the objective to package free software in life science and
medicine for official Debian. Since SignalP belongs to the life
sciences section you might like to have a look onto our package
containing a long list of just packaged bioinformatics software[1] which
provides users with a huge set of programs installable by a single mouse
click.
Since Debian only distributes free software (for instance licensed under
GPL, BSD or so) we are wondering whether you might consider to publish
the source code of this software under a free license.
The advantage would be that users of Debian / Ubuntu and its derivatives
systems which are quite frequently used in bioinformatics could easily
install your software. You also get some additional quality assurance
and I can confirm that all authors who decided to open source their
software to enable the Debian Med packaging team were happy about this
step since it contributed to a wider distribution of their software and
a better user response.
Many researchers actively avoid non-open-source software, see a
discussion from C. Titus Brown:
http://ivory.idyll.org/blog/2015-on-licensing-in-bioinformatics.html
under "Why avoid non-open-source software?"
Many scientists reported that one of the many benefits they enjoyed with
releasing their software under a free or open source license is the
improvements they got from other users.
I just want to inspire you by other authors that have considered free
licenses for instance MEGAN:
https://github.com/danielhuson/megan-ce/
(we are currently working to create Debian packages from MEGAN.)
Kind regards and thanks for considering
Andreas.
[1] https://blends.debian.org/med/tasks/bio
--
http://fam-tille.de
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