EMBASSY program suites

[Fernan Aguero]

Hi,

I've a question regarding EMBASSY apps. I'm now updating the
EMBOSS FreeBSD port to the latest (2.6.0) version, and need
to solve the problem of these associated apps.

I see that some EMBASSY packages are very similar to EMBOSS
apps. Seems like, as it is made clear on the web site, they
share the same look and feel, but the author wishes to keep
them separate from the rest of EMBOSS. Without knowing
anything of the internals it would be OK to guess that they
use or depend on some EMBOSS shared library or binaries?

On the other hand, some packages like Phylip are usable on
their own, and IIRC I've never needed to install EMBOSS to
have a usable phylip installation. What is the purpose of
having phylip as an associated app? How is this phylip
different from the one provided by the author?
I've noticed that the version of phylip in EMBASSY have
lagged behind in the past, was this for some reason?

My main interest with these questions, and regarding the
FreeBSD EMBOSS port is to decide if I should direct users to
the already existing port for phylip or if I need to create
a new EMBOSS-specific phylip port (this could be needed if
the phylip release used in EMBASSY needs to be different for
some reason).

The same happens with respect to the other packages, although
currently there is no independent EMNU, TOPO or MSE ports in
FreeBSD. Also, I guess (without too much knowledge) that
perhaps these do integrate in some more tighter way with
EMBOSS and perhaps (please enlighten me) cannot be installed
independently.

Thanks in advance for suggestions, corrections,
clarifications, etc.

Fernan

-- 
F e r n a n   A g u e r o
http://genoma.unsam.edu.ar/~fernan