...[snip]... > True, you can't. But honestly I really don't see the 4M's as the > enemy.
"Enemy" is used in the metaphorical sense. You have chosen these systems to be "the competition", thus, the "enemy" in the metaphor. That does not imply that the (n)Ms are evil in any way. I quite like the fact that they are keeping these useful ideas alive. The point I was trying to make is that what you choose as your strategy defines everything. You've chosen the nMs as your "competition" and that focus will shape your efforts. Unfortunately it appears to me that your strategy cannot achieve the goals you set, only serving to make the situation worse. I've chosen to focus on building a "best of breed", fully literate, proven system that can be easily extended with fully open literature and conforms to a set of mathematically well-defined standards. What the nMs actually do is of little interest. My goals are also unachievable but I still find them of interest. Either choice is fine. We're clearly not competing and I'll do everything I can to help Sage along. In fact, I'd really like it if Sage tried to become literate. >No they don't. Sage is GPL'd. Any improvements or changes they make >to Sage must be given back. They won't improve Sage, they will use Sage as a sales tool to find people who might be interested in computational mathematics. Sage is an excellent idea and may become the lingua-franca of CAS systems. But vital sections of its capabilities will still be black box since they are commercial. Your strategy is useful but won't ever succeed in gaining on the competition since every "sale" you make becomes another "prospect" for the nMs. In fact, come to think of it, this might make a useful argument to try to get corporate funding :-) "We're your best sales tool!" >Whether or not a system can compete is determined by what actual real >people really want and can afford when teaching or doing research. Actually not. From my experience the nMs offer site licenses at Universities (and, I believe "all of France" in some cases). The "cost" is overhead (your 55%) and has nothing to do with what you can afford. I'd bet you have MMA and/or Maple and you didn't spend project funds on either one. The NSF, INRIA, and others cover it. These are the same people who won't fund Axiom because "it competes with commercial software". Which shows that they don't understand that Axiom is NOT trying to compete; and that funding competition to commercial software implies funding BOTH sides of the effort. >It's not at all clear to me that actual research mathematicians, teachers >and engineers want what you're describing above more than the >other options they will have available. In fact, I think it highly unlikely. In the long term (think next century) does it benefit computational mathematics if the fundamental algorithms are "black box"? It may benefit teachers, engineers, and other professionals. But does it benefit the computational science? How much damage will be done to progress in the field as each "fundamental" commercial system eventually dies on the corporate deathbed? Suppose someone creates a closed, commercial, really fast Groebner basis algorithm, does not publish the details, and then the code dies. It can happen. Macsyma had some of the best algorithms and they are lost. Way back in history there are stories of people who found algorithms (can't remember any names now) but they didn't publish them. In order to prove they had found one you sent them your problem and they sent you a solution. How far would mathematics have developed if this practice still existed today? Well, I ask how far computational mathematics will develop if we continue the same practice. Define the practice as outside your interest and ignore those who do it. Anyway, this is all "angels on pinheads" debate. The chances of funding Axiom are exactly equal to the chances of me winning the lottery. I play the numbers 3 14 15 92 65 35 religiously :-) I did appreciate your publication though. Hopefully someone will read it and show up with funding for Sage. Tim _______________________________________________ Axiom-developer mailing list Axiom-developer@nongnu.org http://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/axiom-developer