Why Das/2 Is Not As Popular As Das/1?

Question

[9606]

I was just looking at official DAS statistics, available at this link. In 2011 we had 1200 DAS/1 Servers but only 8 DAS/2 Servers. Furthermore, over the years the number of those servers does not seem to increase.

May I have your opinion about that?

Thank you, Best Regards

Answer 1

[Alastair Kerr]

For me it was

• The easiest tools to develop a DAS server were DAS1 (e.g. proserver).
• The DAS registry is DAS1 only
• All the cool kids were using it (Ensembl, Jalview....)

.

Answer 2

[Istvan Albert]

From what I know/think the main problems with DAS/2 were that the redesign came too soon after trying to convince people to adopt DAS/1

In addition the protocol was not backward compatible. Notably the last activity on DAS/2 was at the time the funding ended in 2007 whereas DAS/1 remained more actively developed.

Though I am sure there is probably a story behind the story there as well: all tied around money, pride, high stakes politics and intrigue.