[Fsatom-comm] Fsatom goals

[Alberto Garcia]

I think Konrad has put the matter in very clear terms. It all boils 
down to what we consider the *priorities* of FSAtom to be. The Manifest 
list three goals: (itemization mine):

The Free Software project for Atomic-scale Simulation has the aim to

- spread the use of the ``Free Software'' concept in the community of 
Atomic-scale Simulation software developers,

- to improve the awareness of modern software engineering concepts,

- to constitute the natural place for interactions between different 
groups of developers in this field.

Personally I think the last two are the most important, with the second 
one at the top. I have been committed to the use of "modern" techniques 
for quite a long time, even if, for several reasons, the codes I have 
worked on (the Berkeley plane-wave and pseudopotential codes, the 
Vanderbilt CUSP program, and Siesta, among others) are not (yet) "free 
software" in the narrow sense of the "four freedoms".

Apparently the recent decision to include me in the FSAtom committee 
was not made based on my work on Siesta and other codes, but on my work 
on the XML parser and the participation in the development of 
pseudopotential file formats...  The parser is kosher free software 
(BSD...), while Siesta is not (but "free" with controlled 
redistribution for academics). But some of the most dynamic FSAtom 
activities involve code interoperability, in particular Siesta-Abinit. 
Do we want this kind of work, and its useful spinoffs, to continue 
unhindered?

Much work needs to be done to raise even the *awareness* of the 
existence of better ways to do things. Non-free codes can still 
showcase the modern tools and approaches. Insistence on a narrow point 
of view can in my opinion be detrimental to the health of the field.

	Best regards,

	Alberto

PS: No object to the proposals for mailing lists.

Prof. Alberto Garcia      (http://lcdx00.wm.lc.ehu.es/~wdpgaara)
Dep. Fisica de la Materia Condensada, Facultad de Ciencia y Tecnologia
Universidad del Pais Vasco, Apartado 644, 48080 Bilbao, SPAIN
Mail: wdpgaara@lg.ehu.es; Tel: +34-946.012.490; Fax: +34-944.648.500