Dear All, I'd like to start a discussion, and gauge peoples interest in creating an Open Source Flow Cytometry Data Analysis Software package. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the concept of open source software please have a look here http://www.opensource.org/ "The basic idea behind open source is very simple: When programmers can read, redistribute, and modify the source code for a piece of software, the software evolves. People improve it, people adapt it, people fix bugs. And this can happen at a speed that, if one is used to the slow pace of conventional software development, seems astonishing." The reasons behind my interest in such a project are many fold: * Firstly, from a standpoint "flow community spirit" it just plain makes sense, as a group we have the ability to achieve so much. * Secondly, there is the matter of economics, we can all benefit from such a product, (including commercial vendors for example http://www.redhat.com or commercial end users like Amazon shifting to Linux)and in particular in developing countries where the cost of some commercial packages could be prohibitive. * Thirdly, development time of the "ultimate" no cost flow analysis package could be incredibly short That said, we are willing to put our "money where our mouth is" and provide source code towards such a package. I'm not necessarily the person with the skills to set up or manage such a project, but would contribute where I could. Your thoughts? Yours in anticipation, Geoffrey Osborne Specialist, Flow Cytometry, John Curtin School of Medical Research, The Australian National University, Canberra, 0200, ACT. AUSTRALIA email: geoff.osborne@anu.edu.au http://jcsmr.anu.edu.au/facslab/facshome.html (61 2) 6125 3694.
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