James,
If I may chime in here, as the head of a similar effort half as old and
one quarter the size of Global Phasing...
We scientists heading up private crystallography & related software
efforts tend to be hypersensitive to such criticisms because of certain
unfortunate past behaviors of commercial entities, who clearly were
"just trying to make a buck", rather than trying to help their
colleagues or advance science.
So even the suggestion that one of us might be becoming that which
initially drove us to achieve independence from the
"academic-to-industrial software licensing complex" is an anathema
guaranteed to engender a strong reaction. But there is more to it than
that:
For one thing, if we were "just trying to make a buck" from software,
then we would all be idiots for attempting to do so in a field
increasingly dominated by excellent free, academic, and open-source
solutions. But we're not idiots -- we're in this area by desire and by
choice, not by necessity. There are far more software bucks to be made
downstream of basic research...
For another thing, most of our businesses engage in practices
deliberately inconsistent with making as many bucks as possible, such
as: giving source code away unconditionally, making executables
available at no cost to some users, and providing certain types of
support at no charge -- so long as we can continue to make ends meet.
That is compelling evidence that we all care more about helping our
colleagues and about advancing science than about raking in the dough.
Of course, knowing you personally, I don't think you meant anything with
that hyperbole, but I can understand Gerard's reaction to it.
So, in summary, going after us small private businesses for weak
documentation, complex installations, sporadic crashes, or lack of undo
-- that stuff is all fair game. But calling us just "buck makers"? Now
that's below the belt, even in jest!
Cheers,
Warren
DeLano Scientific LLC
[log in to unmask]
-----Original Message-----
From: CCP4 bulletin board [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
James Stroud
Sent: Monday, October 27, 2008 5:03 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [ccp4bb] buster-tnt on OSX ?
Yikes!
Apologies if that was over the top. I guess the chisanbop comment did
not properly convey the hyperbole, and hence humor, I was trying to
achieve. Hopefully my comments can still be taken as the constructive
criticism they were intended to be.
James
On Oct 26, 2008, at 4:57 PM, Gerard Bricogne wrote:
> Dear James,
>
> I am rather surprised and disappointed to find such an
> intemperate,
> ill-judged and almost slanderous statement from you, especially in a
> posting
> to a bulletin board that is intended for the sharing of experience
> and good
> will and to which you have been such a regular and valued contributor.
>
> To deal with slander first: Global phasing has been operating
> for over
> 10 years without ever being, or intending to be, anyone's chance to
> "just
> try and make a buck". We develop our software thank to a mix of
> funding that
> does include industrial sponsors, but we distribute it free of
> charge to
> academic users (since 2002 we have issued over 3500 licence keys for
> SHARP
> to academic users). We even give support to academic users, and
> spare no
> pains in doing so, as many users can testify: this is not exactly
> the most
> lucrative occupation if one is looking to make a buck. Global
> Phasing's
> staff consists of eight scientists, plus one part-time person to
> keep the
> books and get the annual accounts audited. The company has never had
> any
> investors, and spends all its income on scientists' salaries and
> running
> costs. Perhaps the ".com" suffix has acquired a bad smell in other
> parts of
> the world, but in this case your insinuations are badly misguided.
>
> If you have had difficulties installing software from us, a more
> constructive form of feedback would be to write to us at sharp-
> develop or
> buster-develop (both @globalphasing.com) and explain the nature of
> those
> difficulties. We have often found that the worst problems occur when
> people,
> instead of writing to us, start to try and hack the scripts
> themselves and
> end up tying themselves in inextricable knots. One of your remarks
> seems to
> want to imply that we have taken a perverse pleasure in making
> installations
> difficult. It is true that we still carry a legacy from earlier days
> when
> some of our sponsors wanted to be able to distribute jobs over
> heterogeneous
> clusters of machines and to view the results from any other machine
> on that
> network, while most users today just want to run everything on one
> machine.
> Our installation procedures have kept evolving to become simpler and
> more
> robust, although the need to link up with several third-party
> packages makes
> it hard to suppress complexity entirely. If you happen to have
> constructive
> suggestions to make in this direction, we will be only too happy to
> listen
> to them and will do our best to make use of them. We do have,
> however, to
> weigh up how much time to devote to these issues, vs. how much to
> developing
> and implementing new methods.
>
> I hope you will take the time to write to either of the mailing
> lists I
> indicated above to explain what simplifications you would like to
> see in our
> current installation procedures, and look forward to reading them.
>
>
> With best wishes,
>
> Gerard.
>
>
> --
> On Sun, Oct 26, 2008 at 01:40:35AM -0700, James Stroud wrote:
>> The info at
>>
>>
http://www.globalphasing.com/buster/installation/index.html#requirements
>>
>> will give you some hints about whether it will be successful on OS
>> X. As
>> per the Global Phasing modus operandi, any instruction involving
>> installation of their software is muddled in riddle and ambiguity.
>> They
>> have made an art of making their software difficult to install. I
>> guess the
>> philosophy is that if you can somehow get their software installed,
>> then
>> you have earned your phase information. Personally, I'd rather
>> solve my
>> structure with using chisanbop and a pencil than attempt to install
>> Global
>> Phasing software.
>>
>> Speaking from experience, this is my 2c. Apologies if I hurt anyone's
>> feelings who are "just trying to make a buck".
>>
>> James
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Oct 24, 2008, at 9:39 AM, jacques-philippe colletier wrote:
>>
>>> Hi everydoby,
>>> I`d like to know if there is a version of BUSTER-TNT available on
>>> MacOSX ?
>>> Anyone knows ?
>>>
>>>
>>> *****************************************
>>> Dr. Jacques-Philippe Colletier
>>> UCLA / DOE Institute for Genomics and Proteomics
>>> 90095 Los Angeles, CA, USA
>>> *****************************************
>>> [log in to unmask]
>>> [log in to unmask]
>>> *****************************************
>>
>> --
>> James Stroud
>> UCLA-DOE Institute for Genomics and Proteomics
>> Box 951570
>> Los Angeles, CA 90095
>>
>> http://www.jamesstroud.com
>
> --
>
> ===============================================================
> * *
> * Gerard Bricogne [log in to unmask] *
> * *
> * Global Phasing Ltd. *
> * Sheraton House, Castle Park Tel: +44-(0)1223-353033 *
> * Cambridge CB3 0AX, UK Fax: +44-(0)1223-366889 *
> * *
> ===============================================================
--
James Stroud
UCLA-DOE Institute for Genomics and Proteomics
Box 951570
Los Angeles, CA 90095
http://www.jamesstroud.com
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