Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!pacbell.com!ucsd!usc!apple!bionet!news.miami.edu!molbio.med.miami.edu!jkramer From: jkramer@molbio.med.miami.edu (Jack Kramer) Newsgroups: bionet.molbio.genbank Subject: Re: A question for FTP users Message-ID: <1991Jan19.035659.9788@news.miami.edu> Date: 19 Jan 91 03:56:59 GMT References: <9101190214.AA17249@alanine.phri.nyu.edu> Sender: news@news.miami.edu (USENET News System) Organization: U of Miami Molecular Biology Computing Lines: 36 In article <9101190214.AA17249@alanine.phri.nyu.edu> roy@ALANINE.PHRI.NYU.EDU (Roy Smith) writes: >Dave Kristofferson says: >> We have had a request to keep both the current GenBank release AND the >> previous GenBank release in the FTP directory as standard policy. > > To be honest, I'm hard pressed to find a reason why anybody would >want to see release N-1 of GenBank. I certainly don't see a reason to use >valuable public disk space for this purpose. What could possibly be in an >older release that's not also in the current one? >-- I am one of those who requested that the previous release UPDATE files be kept on line for some overlap period after a new release. My primary reason for this is that I maintain two major software packages (IG and GCG) that work with the databases. I make every attempt to keep all the databases as up to date as possible. Each of the packages uses a proprietary format for the data. Even though it is ultimately possible, it is extremely inconvenient to download the entire databases as soon as a new version is posted and reformat them to the proprietary formats. I therefore usually depend on the vendors normal distributions for full releases. There is delay from the GenBank release date until the vendors get the new release, reformat it, and distribute it to their customers. This can be a several week delay. My request was that the previous updates be kept online for a reasonable period to allow those dependent upon vendor distribution to get the new baseline release. This is mainly to prevent any confusion and mistakes which could affect the work of the database and software package users. Now that the new feature table fiasco is finally over, and the state of update files are well documented on-line this may all be moot. But I still feel a little uncomfortable about everything being deleted for the previous release as soon as a new release is available at GenBank. This is not a complaint about GenBank. The anonymous ftp service is a real lifesaver for me and I really appreciate all the cooperation and service I have received from the GenBank staff.