Software

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GILDAS software has evolved quite substantially since the original ``SAS'' program (later renamed LAS & CLASS) was written at the Groupe d'Astrophysique de Grenoble for the analysis of spectra from the POM-2 telescope.

GILDAS is now about 10 years old (some parts are 15 years old, others are only 2 years old), and has been ported to 5 operating systems (simultaneously or successively): RSX-11M, VAX-VMS, several Unix, MAC-OS and Windows-95/98. Because of short (Plateau de Bure antenna 6), medium (software upgrade of the 30-m, VLTI data reduction software), and (not so) long (ALMA) term projects, it is time to re-evaluate the future of GILDAS. A document has been written on this matter; it can be consulted at http://iram.fr/doc/evolution/evolution.html.

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We have created an email distribution list (gildas-user@iram.fr) to facilitate interactions between users and the Gildas group. Please feel free to subscribe to that list, by sending to listserv@iram.fr an email message containing the line:
SUBSCRIBE gildas-user your name and institution
You will then be able to send e-mail to the list (gildas-user@iram.fr) to report problems, send suggestions, propose contributions, and in particular comment on the above document. Based on this document, first changes were made concerning the command monitor SIC; they are being used in Grenoble.

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A new version of the GILDAS software (mar99) is available in our ftp area (ftp://iram.fr/dist/soft/). This version does not contain any of the changes just discussed (but we are confident that the next one will).

Stéphane Guilloteau and Robert Lucas