SCALE 6.2.1 Cost

[Jeffrey Ryman]

According to RSICC, the SCALE 6.2.1 update will not be free unless one's funding is from certain sponsors in common with the SCALE developers (as is true for most CCC- and DLC- packages). Anyone who purchased SCALE 6.2 within the last 6 months will be eligible for a half-price update, e.g., $75 instead of $150 for those who are full-price customers. Traditionally, updates other than major revisions (e.g., 5.1, 6, 6.1, 6.2) going back to the old days when I was at ORNL (SCALE 3 and 4) were downloadable at no charge. Although I see a few new features, the description of the 6.2.1 update seems to include mostly bug fixes. I'm fully aware of funding issues after 35 years in the DOE complex, and I will acknowledge that the cost of RSICC software packages has dropped significantly in the last year or two. However, it seems a shame that the bug fixes can't be made available for download at no charge with significant new feature revisions being reserved for major updates (e.g., 6.3) that one expects to pay for. I will note that the cost will be well justified if the SCALE manual has been updated to include the programming information that was included with earlier versions. The programming information is invaluable to those of us who still want to understand the details of how the methodology is implemented. I, for one, am uncomfortable treating large code systems as a black box, particularly when a significant rewrite has taken place.

[Ethan Taber]

I was informed that the fees from RSICC are being waived if the original 6.2 request was submitted less than six months ago.  This should effectively cover the general users group since 6.2 was released at the end of April.

[SCALE Help]

Dear Jeff,

Thank you for bringing this issue to our attention. Because of our modernized software development and deployment processes, it is no longer convenient to deploy patches that sit on top of previous distributions. SCALE 6.2.1 includes a full new set of installer for all of SCALE, expect for the nuclear data, which is unchanged from 6.2 to 6.2.1. As a full installation of the software, it is not possible to deploy this update through the traditional method of posting .zip files to the SCALE website. The SCALE team coordinated this release through RSICC as an updated production release. Unfortunately, since this was the first time for this type of update, there was a misunderstanding with RSICC about how users would be charged for SCALE 6.2.1. We have resolved this misunderstanding, and we intend to continue to provide complimentary minor updates and bug fixes as has been our practice for many years.

With regards to the SCALE user manual, we have worked with our export control compliance officers to remove any export controlled information from the documentation to make it more widely available to the community. The user documentation is posted to the SCALE website for the first time since September 11, 2001. ( See http://scale.ornl.gov/publications.shtml#DOCs ) Part of the controlled content included the coding information you mention. If you have the full version of SCALE 6.2 (or 6.2.1) with the source code, you have full access to the implementation, with many codes including internally-generated human readable documentation using Doxygen and other modern tools.

Best Regards,

Brad Rearden