Bug#382994: ITP: rebase -- The restriction enzyme database, from New England Biolabs
Package: wnpp
Severity: wishlist
Owner: Charles Plessy <charles-debian-nospam@plessy.org>
Package name : rebase
Version : NA
Upstream Author : Dr. Richard J. Roberts and Dana Macelis (http://rebase.neb.com/rebase/rebase.staff.html)
URL : http://rebase.neb.com
License : Permission obtained by email (see below)
Description : The restriction enzyme database, from New England Biolabs
The Restriction Enzyme data BASE is a collection of information about
restriction enzymes and related proteins. It contains published and
unpublished references, recognition and cleavage sites, isoschizomers,
commercial availability, methylation sensitivity, crystal and sequence
data. DNA methyltransferases, homing endonucleases, nicking enzymes,
specificity subunits and control proteins are also included. Most
recently, putative DNA methyltransferases and restriction enzymes, as
predicted from analysis of genomic sequences, are also listed. REBASE
is continuously updated and the web pages not dynamically generated
are refreshed on a nightly basis.
The data in REBASE consists in 39 files which are used by external
software such as PerlPrimer (distributed in Debian), EMBOSS (unofficial
Debian package), or Staden (unfficial Debian package). Packaging REBASE
will make it available to these progams and allow to update the data
without to update the debian package of these programs themeselves. The
packaging of REBASE is a first step towards a high-quality packaging of
EMBOSS, which is very important in the field of molecular biology and
bioinformatics.
I explained the upstream authors the difference between main and
non-free, and asked if they think that we can redistribute their data in
a dfsg-free manner, and here is their answer:
"REBASE is free to its users and they may use the data however
they'd like, but when this use involves repackaging the data
and redistribututing it, the common courtesy we always provide
one another is to credit the source of this data.
Users expect bibliographical content showing the sources of
your material. This could be contained in a README file, or
a menu item, whatever.
So if you include a note such as -
References:
REBASE, the Restriction Enzyme Database
Dr. R.J. Roberts and D. Macelis
rebase.neb.com
somewhere in your distribution, that's fine."
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