[TriLUG] Can open source solutions be viable companies?

[Kim Green]

I know somebody who also used to work there, although not PhD (she's down
at Emory now).  They were very limited in the specialized software
available, meaning no they did no programming, and had to deal with the
software available.  She dearly wanted to upgrade some other software, but
the specialized stuff was designed in a very limited way and would have
gone bonkers if anything in the hardware or OS was changed.  Niche markets
at their finest... :<   Perhaps this PhD was trying to find other ways
around such limitations...

Kim...

On Fri, 28 Jun 2002, John F Davis wrote:

> Ok that brings to mind my one and only contact with the human genome
> project.  I met this lady in a TCL class in San Jose who was working on the
> human genome project.  She had
> a piece of equipment which had a robotic arm that picked up samples
> arranged on a grid and did things to them.  What she did, I didn't
> understand.  But, I understood the bit about controlling the machine.  The
> machine had a TCL interpeter embedded in its control board so that you
> could automate it.  The lady was had a Phd in Genetics and not programming
> but she talked about running simulations as
> well.  I don't know if she did the programming for the simulation or used
> someone else's program.  Maybe the program was written in C and she just
> entered the numbers.
>
> She could have used Windows or Linux to create her TCL files for
> downloading to the machine.  I would venture to say she would have a easier
> time doing the development with TCL.  ie. TCL is cross platform, but the
> windows version has some differences which she may not want to work around.
> The linux box would have a wealth of better tools which are present from
> the very beginning.