Software for chemistry

[Albert Astals Cid]

El Wednesday 02 March 2016, a les 18:33:52, Birgit Lachner va escriure:
> Hi ...

Hi

> I'm Birgit from germany, chemistry and math teacher. I'm using a software
> for my chemistry lessons called SimChemistry. It's free but not open
> source. It's an old software for windows but can easily be used with wine
> and even at school we have no problem with our Debian Linux.
> 
> It offers the possibility to simulate the movement of small particles (atoms
> and molecules only as spheres)
> 
> Software-Homepage: http://www.simchemistry.co.uk/ 
> 
> Video with some examples (no sound):
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAB6isQKFYI 
> 
> The big problem is that it can't be used with tablets and in a browser. So I
> wrote the author, who did not changed a lot in the past years, and asked
> him to make the source code open. He confirmed that he is willing to open
> the code, but not before has substituted a commercial library for random
> numbers, that he used for free.
> 
> So, hopefully it will be soon open source. And now I'm searching for a
> programmer who is able to port the old C++ code to a new version. In my
> oppinion there are may be two parts to be realized. One part is the
> programm to create a new simulation and scriptings (but I don't use them)
> that do not need to work on tablets, because it will be the teacher that
> uses the software usually. As KDE-Software it can be may be used on some
> operating systems. The second part is a "player" that is able to make the
> simulation run even on tablets. I would prefer may be a java script version
> that can run in bowsers and hopefully can be used as a wiki extension. I
> compare it with Jmol and the port JSmol, that I use in the wiki for
> chemistry at school
> http://wikis.zum.de/chemie-digital/Orbitalmodell/Bindungen_beim_Benzol
> 
> Well, I understand that will take some time.And may be a programmer would be
> happy to get some money for his work.
> 
> So I asked someone from the german Siemens-Foundation to support that. My
> contact is interessted and we will talk together on phone soon. At the
> moment there is not much money in the pot, she told me, but she'll have a
> look.
> 
> An other possibilty the get some money for a programmer would be, to go via
> GSoC16.
> 
> Well, that are some ideas ... plaese tell me what's you opinion about my
> ideas.

I think that's a great idea, good job on getting software to be open sourced.

Unfortunately we are a bit short on man power so I would not count on the 
already existing developers to be able to help much, but it would defenitely 
be great if you found someone that took care of it.

In KDE we would love to host that software and make it part of our community, 
see https://community.kde.org/Incubator in case you want that project to join 
us.

Best Regards,
  Albert

> 
> Regards, Birgit