Over the years, PyMOL has become a capable molecular viewer with support for animations, high-quality rendering, crystallography, and other common molecular graphics activities. It has been be adopted by many hundreds (perhaps even thousands) of scientists spread over thirty countries. However, PyMOL is still very much a work in progress, with development expected to continue for years to come.
PyMOL is Copyrighted software that is Free for all parties to use, modify, and redistribute. Because of PyMOL's unusual status, you can be confident that the time you invest today in learning the package will provide you with long term utility no matter where your career happens to takes you. You will never be required to pay software license fees in order to use Open-Source PyMOL or to share it with others who might find it useful.
Nevertheless, PyMOL is not free to develop, document, maintain, and support. If you decide to adopt the package, then you are asked and expected to contribute to the project in some manner. Although such contributions may take a variety of forms, most PyMOL supporters choose to sponsor the project by purchasing (usually through their school or employer) a license and a renewable subscription to maintenance and support. All such contributions are entirely volutary since we have intentionally abandoned the usual means of compelling compliance. Instead, we depend on your free will to provide vital funding for development and to cover other necessary expenses. In return, we provide specific incentives (called Incentive Products) as a reward for helping to fund the project. Example incentive products include this manual, extra features, enhanced platform-specific binary versions, and various other conveniences
Please take this request seriously. If you value PyMOL, then it is clearly in your interest to sponsor it. To find out how to donate or to purchase a license, visit the PyMOL web site at http://www.pymol.org
DeLano Scientific LLC is a private vision-centered software company which owns, develops, and supports the PyMOL package. Our mission as a commercial entity is to create highly effective tools for scientific research and to distribute them as broadly as possible while still succeeding as a healthy business. As a "boot-strapped" company, DeLano Scientific is not beholden to any outside investors who would insist upon maximum returns on investment. Thus, we have the rare privilege of being able to place Scientific and Medical Progress ahead of Profit in our hierarchy of values.
We have chosen a free and open-source approach for PyMOL because we believe this strategy will have the greatest positive impact on humanity. Visualization is key part of understanding the nature of life at the molecular level, and powerful visualization tools need to be universally available to all students and scientists if we are to make rapid progress in biomedical research. If PyMOL is successful, then we hope to expand the scope of our endeavors to meet other critical research needs in related areas.
Growth of the DeLano Scientific will depend entirely on the willingness of PyMOL users to adopt, nuture, and advocate for our volitional approach to software funding. Eventually, we hope to evolve into a major provider of scientific software for biomedical research and be distinguished by the quality, openness, and accessibility of our products, the trusting and nonexploitive relationships we form with our customers, and our willingness to work with all parties in advancing scientific software technologies.
This chapter last updated June 2004 by Warren L. DeLano, Ph.D.