whether windows bioinformatics software be mainstream one day?

[Tong.W]

Hi everyone,
Nowdays more and more people do bioinformatics, and more and more software are developed. Most of them are based on linux , Linux is good for bioinformatic , it is free ,it is fast ,it is safe and open source, it is also efficient. But some people (maily older ones), they can not learn to use linux and program. So bioinformatics software based on windows is better for them .Windows is easy to use and has a better user interface. You just use mouse and the final result will be provided for you ,so you can have more time to analyses the result .Now some famous software based on windows system can also do a lot of work ,such as DNAstar, Dnanexus, Sequencer and so on. Assembly ,alignment, Variations Detection, It is easy to use, Although it is not free .So oneday , when sequence data becomes very long and accurate, we did not need to high output data, we can just use a desktop computer to process data. I wonder if it is realistic.
Or your data are in the Cloud, you just need a App in your ipad, you can use your finger to manage you data, the process is all in the cloud.

[seb567]

Hello,

A push-button application is always what people want, regardless of the platform.

Also, in my opinion Microsoft Windows 7 is harder to operate then recent GNU/Linux distributions, like Ubuntu or Fedora.

And the promise of the cloud won't solve everything in life either.

Sébastien Boisvert

Hi everyone,
Nowdays more and more people do bioinformatics, and more and more software are developed. Most of them are based on linux , Linux is good for bioinformatic , it is free ,it is fast ,it is safe and open source, it is also efficient. But some people (maily older ones), they can not learn to use linux and program. So bioinformatics software based on windows is better for them .Windows is easy to use and has a better user interface. You just use mouse and the final result will be provided for you ,so you can have more time to analyses the result .Now some famous software based on windows system can also do a lot of work ,such as DNAstar, Dnanexus, Sequencer and so on. Assembly ,alignment, Variations Detection, It is easy to use, Although it is not free .So oneday , when sequence data becomes very long and accurate, we did not need to high output data, we can just use a desktop computer to process data. I wonder if it is realistic.
Or your data are in the Cloud, you just need a App in your ipad, you can use your finger to manage you data, the process is all in the cloud.

[ymc]

I don't see that happen unless people start writing GPL'd windows software. Free is good but GPL is more important as it save many legal hassles should one arises. Eventually there might be some GPL windows software but can you afford to wait for them?

[xied75]

You might want to check out http://www.outercurve.org/, they have different view on licensing. GPL is not equal to Free Software or Open Source. Especially GPLv3, many people (even from Linux side) is not using it. http://www.codeplex.com supports GPLv1, v2, not v3. Many people choose MIT, new BSD etc., because these does not prohibit you from commercializing your code.

If you think deep enough, GPLv3 is very "Political", it forces you to give up your human desire of money for your labour. (Of cause you could get paper/fame in return if your playground is Academe, you might get a professorship for a popular tool, which, who doesn't want?!) http://www.phdcomics.com/comics.php?f=1144

On Microsoft side, there are more and more heavy weight stuff released as Open source, I can provide a list if anyone is interested to know.

And, I think, THE MOST popular tool for all scientist/post-doc/lab, is in fact Excel.