Drew Parsons <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: >my name is Drew Parsons, I'm in the queue to become a Debian maintainer and= > am >waiting to be processed. My training has been in theoretical chemistry and >therefore I'm interested in having the best available chemical modelling >programs in Debian. Currently Debian has rasmol, maintained by Randolph >Chung, which is a fine program, but does not support the particular file >format I have occasion to use (BIOSYM's .car/.arc format, if you're >wondering).
You may want to look at babel to convert them to a format that rasmol can read. I'm not sure if babel would fit the DFSG either, though it may be possible to persuade the authors to change to a licence that does. At http://smog.com/chem/babel/README.txt it says: -- BABEL LICENCE Babel version 1.1 Copyright (C) 1992,1993,1994 by Pat Walters and Matt Stahl Dolata Research Group Department of Chemistry University of Arizona Tucson, AZ 85721 [EMAIL PROTECTED] This software is provided on an "as is" basis, and without warranty of any kind, including but not limited to any implied warranty of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. In no event shall the authors or the University of Arizona be liable for any direct, indirect, incidental, special, or consequential damages arising from use or distribution of this software. The University of Arizona also shall not be liable for any claim against any user of this program by any third party. PLEASE REGISTER --------------- We don't want any money for Babel (unless of course you insist), but we would like to know who has a copy so that we can notify people about updates and bug fixes. You can register by sending e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] and letting us know the following: -who you are -where you are -what platform you're running Babel on -which file conversions you commonly use We are very open to suggestions. If there's anything you like or don't like about the program please let us know. Also if there are file formats you would like to see supported let us know. -- END BABEL LICENCE > >There are a couple of other alternatives available, and I'd like to check >with you at debian-legal to see if one of them fits with Debian's >free-software guidelines. > >The programs I'm aware of are: > - xmol (http://www.msc.edu/msc/docs/xmol/ftp.html) > - viewmol (ftp://ccl.osc.edu/pub/chemistry/software/SOURCES/C/viewmol/) > - molden (http://www.caos.kun.nl/~schaft/molden/molden.html) ghemical http://www.uku.fi/~thassine/ghemical/ is available under the gpl, though I've not used it. http://cds3.dl.ac.uk/cds/util.html may also provide some useful links. Babel may not be ideal however as the above URL links to "bedlam" which claims: "In common with the various CDS utilities, BEDLAM handles crystallographic data better than BABEL" I'm not sure if bedlam is distributed though. http://www.ccp14.ac.uk/ may also provide some useful links to software. Chris