Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
bases, and online tutorials and reference texts available for support. However, it's unreasonable to
expect an open-source project that is staffed by volunteer programmers to provide 24-hour hotline
support. If this level of handholding is required, then the options are either to go with a commercial
product that offers full support or to use a commercial house that supports open-source products.
Several successful companies make a handsome profit every year by providing telephone, e-mail,
and even on-site support for open-source and other freely available software.
Inevitably, the products and processes that are the most accurate, useful, and useable enter the
commercial arena in some form. As the current R&D projects associated with bioinformatics software
evolve into maintenance and support projects, many of the research labs will focus their attention on
the next new thing in bioinformatics. When this happens, the commercial houses will be left with the
opportunity—and burden—of maintaining and upgrading the software tools, hardware, and various
experimental devices that are still evolving in bioinformatics laboratories around the world.
