Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!uunet!bionet!GENBANK.BIO.NET!kristoff From: kristoff@GENBANK.BIO.NET (Dave Kristofferson) Newsgroups: bionet.molbio.genbank Subject: Re: A question for FTP users Message-ID: Date: 23 Jan 91 22:20:15 GMT Sender: kristoff@genbank.bio.net Lines: 35 Bruce, One "break" coming up 8-)! I may respond in more detail later, but one quick note now. I think that you *will* find people who search the entire database on PC's. They just turn the thing on and walk away for the evening. There's a sizable crowd that doesn't want anything to do with "mainframes" if they can avoid them. I have to leave official statements as to what the government can and can't do to government officials, but there are many people that use commercial PC and Mac programs, and it is not clear to me that the government can provide the data in a format specifically tailored to a subset of commercial programs. Another thing that comes to mind is what happens if tapes sent out in XYZ format by GenBank cause a problem. Does GenBank get access to the commercial software and run tests first to ensure that the stuff works? Does this task remain in the hands of the vendors and result in constant exchanges between the vendor and GenBank? It strikes me that GenBank would have to accept some degree of responsibility for this, but why should a public agency get involved in support for a commercial company? Because people out there can't come up with $1600 a year for a commercial tape subscription (* see below)? It strikes me as being a lot cleaner for GenBank simply to provide its own format and for the vendors to adapt. We both agree that this will only occur if there is continued stability in the format, but this has not happened yet and may still not happen for some time unfortunately. Technological progress in its own right has a nasty habit of requiring format changes. Dave * - When I used to work at UCSF I never saw people cring at spending several hundred dollars on radionucleotides, GTP, etc. However, there is some kind of psychological barrier when it comes to spending money on computers and software (maybe because it's easier to copy software than it is to make reagents!).