Future of CSIRO DELTA programs

[James Beach]

Pulling the plug on the DELTA project is a regrettable and short-sighted
decision on the part of CSIRO Entomology.  DELTA has been one of the very
few adequately supported pieces of the biodiversity computing
infrastructure for a quarter of a century.  Mike Dallwitz deserves all our
praise and support for his long-term vision, rugged determination and
sustained software support for character-level computing and
databases.  The loss of this effort as a centrally-supported,
community-based collaboration diminishes the role and impact systematics
will have in the rapidly evolving biodiversity informatics infrastructure.



At 4/5/2000 08:33 AM +1000, you wrote:
>CSIRO Entomology has supported the development of DELTA and associated
>programs for some 25 years, and believes they are valued research and
>communication tools. CSIRO is committed to biological informatics and is
>keen to see the programs continue to be of value to the scientific community
>and other users of taxonomic information. However, it has been decided that,
>based on relative priorities, the maturity of the project, and available
>resources, CSIRO cannot continue to fund the development of these programs
>from its core resources.
>
>Program development and user support will continue until the end of this
>year. A new version of Intkey, with a substantially improved interface, will
>be released in June. A completely self-contained version of the DELTA
>Editor, incorporating the functions of Confor and Intimate, will be released
>in December, making Confor and Intimate obsolete. During this year we will
>improve the marketing of DELTA and also expect to offer enhanced support to
>users, including training and dedicated support to major users.
>
>It is hoped that alternative support for DELTA will be in place before the
>end of the year. CSIRO will explore ways for continued support and
>development of the programs, either by CSIRO or by other institutions. Your
>assistance in securing their continued availability would be greatly
>appreciated and we would welcome your ideas or expressions of interest in
>the future development and support of the programs.
>
>
>R. Floyd
>Program Leader
>Natural Resources and Biodiversity
>CSIRO Entomology
>
>--
>
>Communicated by Mike Dallwitz
>
>CSIRO Entomology, GPO Box 1700, Canberra ACT 2601, Australia
>Phone: +61 2 6246 4075   Fax: +61 2 6246 4000
>Email: md at ento.csiro.au  Internet: biodiversity.uno.edu/delta/


____________________________________________________

James H. Beach
Assistant Director for Informatics
Natural History Museum and Biodiversity Research Center
Dyche Hall, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS 66045
E-mail: jbeach at ukans.edu
Tel: (785) 864-4645, Fax: (785) 864-5335
NetMeeting: beachnt.nhm.ukans.edu