[BiO BB] RE: BioInformatics Workbench project

J.W. Bizzaro jeff at bioinformatics.org
Wed Jun 28 11:29:44 EDT 2006


Marcel, just as an example of the head-start that some projects have (you're
looking for a list of tools needed), take a look at the EMBOSS applications
(more than 100):

   http://emboss.sourceforge.net/apps/cvs/groups.html

Even on the user interface side, lots of work has been done (on Windows, too):

   http://emboss.sourceforge.net/interfaces/

EMBOSS is about 8 years old.  Speaking as someone who has been involved in OSS
development for bioinformatics for the same amount of time, I can tell you that
existing projects need a lot of help from volunteers.  But most aren't getting
it.  For every 10 projects started, maybe only 1 makes it to maturity and is
considered significant.  And, for every 10 people that join a mailing list
saying that they'll help with a project, maybe only 1 actually does (it's much
lower than that in some cases).

Amir is right about this.

Even Bioinformatics.Org could use some help.  Know any PHP? ;-)

Cheers,
Jeff

Amir Karger wrote:
[...]
> I know I've sounded very negative here. Maybe you're good enough to actually
> pull it off. But the open source world is littered with the wreckage of
> well-intentioned projects that never got off the ground. (I've created - or
> not successfully created - a few little ones myself.)
> 
> It's several zillion times faster to start from an existing code base than 
> to start from scratch. This could mean either joining an existing project's 
> development team, or, if you disagree about their future direction, at least
>  copying their code to start your own project.
[...]

-- 
J.W. Bizzaro
Bioinformatics Organization, Inc. (Bioinformatics.Org)
E-mail: jeff at bioinformatics.org
Phone:  +1 508 890 8600
--



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