Vote for Avogadro

Here is a really exciting message from Geoff Hutchison – a founder member of the Blue Obelisk

PMR: EVEN IF YOU ARE NOT A CHEMIST, READ ON = PLEASE = WE NEED YOU INPUT (ESPECIALLY THE VOTE)

Avogadro has been nominated as a finalist for the SourceForge
Community Choice Award for “Best Project for Academia”:
https://sourceforge.net/community/cca09/vote/

This is a real honor for us, and we appreciate everyone who nominated
us for the award. I certainly didn’t stuff the ballot box, so many of
you must have voted for us.

We haven’t yet released version 1.0, but we’re working hard on it. So
far, we’ve had over 40,000 downloads, been translated into ~14
languages on Launchpad.Net and are amazed and humbled by everyone
who’s contributed in different ways.

PMR: Geoff has been working on a new OPEN SOURCE molecular editor. When I visited Geoff in Pittsburgh he showed me it in the cafe at lunch.

IT’S BRILLIANT. JUST GO TO SOURCEFORGE AND VOTE (ONCE ONLY, BUT GET YOUR FRIENDS TO VOTE)

EVEN IF YOU ARE NOT A CHEMIST, WATCH THE VIDEO (SEE BELOW) AND IF YOU ARE COMPUTER-LITERATE DOWNLOAD AND PLAY WITH IT. THE WAY IN WHICH MOLECULES ARE BUILT

So why is this important? It’s because the Blue Obelisk has now reached critical mass and is able to build on what it already has. So Avogadro uses the library in OpenBabel to minimise molecules. The almost haptic-like feel of the build depends on the system optimising the molecule in real time. It is the first time I have ever seen a system which can easily convert a chair to a boat. And, of course, it is currently limited to a mouse. When we go touchy-feely then this will be way in front.

Geoff is the Doctor Who of Avogadro. There’s been a lot of contributions and he told me of one who had contributed a complete library. And Avogadro has happened within about 2 years. Most Blue Obelisk projects have taken 5 years or more to reach critical mass. That”s of course a tribute to Geoff but it also represents maturity in the libraries (OpenBabel has taken ca 10 years) and the better collaborative and engineering tools. And the fact that an increasing number of people believe in the Blue Obelisk.

Remember that most BO software is not directly funded (many of the competing software projects like OpenOffice have contributors who – at least in part – are expected to donate code as part of their day-job). It’s probably fair to say that some – like OSCAR – are funded on the margins of grants and OPSIN now has a full-time graduate student Doctor Who (Daniel Lowe). But most are found in the recesses of the early mornings and weekends. And they are often not approved of by the establishment – “what is X doing when they should be doing science?”

The Blue Obelisk software is like a series of telescopes. They will shortly reach the power of many commercial offerings and then they will go beyond them. That’s because there is a great drive for innovation, for Open methods to ensure quality, for re-use of existing code. We’ve got a few problems to iron out – different libraries and OS’s but there is now enough redundacy.

So when you vote for Avogadro (as you will) you are not just voting for a piece of software but you are voting to add Openness to a major scientific domain which has been suffering from the darkness of closed source and hidden data for far too long. Just as mySociety is liberating our democracy, the Blue Obelisk is liberating chemistry.