Staden Package

[Oddmund Nordgård]

Sending an email to george.rada at headoffice.mrc.ac.uk resulted in "Delivery
failure". Perhaps the address does not exist anymore?

Oddmund Nordgård


On Tue, 1 Apr 2003, David Martin wrote:

> many on this list will be users of the Staden Package. This has recently had
> close ties with the EMBOSS project.
>
> It is (IMHO) extremely shortsighted of the MRC to take this approach and I
> would urge all those of you who have benefitted from this package to at
> least send an email to support Rodger Staden's position and argue for
> continued support for the package.
>
> ..d
>
> --
> David Martin PhD
> Bioinformatics Scientific Officer
> Post-Genomics and Molecular Interactions Centre
> University of Dundee
>
> ------ Forwarded Message
> From: Staden Package Administrator <staden-admin at mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk>
> Date: Tue, 1 Apr 2003 14:18:04 +0100 (BST)
> To: d.m.a.martin at dundee.ac.uk
> Subject: Devastating news
>
> Hello,
>
> You are on the list of people with licences for our software. I am
> sorry to have to inform you that the Staden Package is no longer
> available or supported as the MRC has decided to withdraw our funding.
>
> Last year I submitted, to MRC, a three year grant proposal of 443k,
> almost all of which was to pay salaries. The application gained
> extremely positive referee reports and the MRC Molecular and Cellular
> Medicine Board awarded it their highest banding for both past and
> proposed work. Despite this, and with knowledge of the large number of
> groups who are going to be badly affected, the MRC has decided not to
> fund us. The current funding finishes at the end of April - just a few
> weeks - and James Bonfield, Kathryn Beal, Mark Jordan and Yaping Cheng
> will lose their jobs and receive no redundancy pay.
>
> Before we saw the favourable referees reports I asked MRC if, in the
> event of our funding being cut, the package could be made Open Source
> so that we and others could continue to develop and support it even if
> no longer working for MRC. This seemed to us the best way of
> safeguarding users and the careers of the group. MRC refused, saying
> the package had potential commercial value.
>
> The official who phoned to tell us the funding decision said he had
> "devastating news". For us this is certainly true. I have been working
> on various versions of the package for over 25 years, James for 11 and
> Kathryn for 7. It is also very frustrating as we had so much work
> nearly ready for release.
>
> If this decision is going to affect the work of you and your
> colleagues, or if you have any other comments or suggestions please
> reply to this email and, if you think it might help, send a copy to
> the MRC Chief Executive George Rada george.rada at headoffice.mrc.ac.uk
>
>
> Rodger Staden
>
> --
> Dr Rodger Staden,                     rs at mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk
> MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology,  http://www.mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk/pubseq/
> Hills Road,                           Tel (01223) 402389   or +44 1223
> 402389
> Cambridge,  CB2 2QH, UK.              Fax (01223) 213556   or +44 1223
> 213556
>
>
> ------ End of Forwarded Message
>
>

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  Oddmund Nordgård

  Address at work:				Adress at home:
  Department of Haematology and Oncology	Opalv. 28
  Rogaland Central Hospital			4318 SANDNES
  P.O. Box 8100					Tlf.:  51 67 25 65
  4068 STAVANGER				Mob.:  48 20 51 72
  Phone: 51 51 89 26
  Email: oddmundn at biokjemi.uio.no

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