On Wed, Apr 30, 2008 at 9:53 AM, William Stein wrote: > > On Wed, Apr 30, 2008 at 12:02 AM, Bill Page wrote: > > > > On Wed, Apr 30, 2008 at 1:57 AM, William Stein wrote: > > > > > > I'm giving a plenary talk at ISSAC in Linz, Austria this summer. I'm > supposed > > > to write a 2-page "abstract/paper" for the proceedings. I just wrote > something: > > > > > > http://sage.math.washington.edu/home/was/tmp/abstract.pdf > > > > > > I really don't think that you will find many people at this meeting > > who are interested in open source alternatives to commercial > > software as such. > > I guess they will just be bored by my talk and fall asleep. >
I certainly hope not! I think the ISSAC community needs Sage very badly - they just don't know it yet. > > > Many of the attendees will have and may still be involved in > > developing software for the commercial systems. Most are also > > involved in some form of academic research in computer algebra > > systems. I don't mean that people wont be interested in hearing > > about the advantages of open source, but I believe that it would > > not normally be viewed as their primary motivation or preoccupation. > > And I think they will probably already have a fairly good idea about > > why Sage exists. > > I actually imagine that a lot of them won't have a good idea about > why Sage exists. The main reason Sage exists is because exactly > those people failed for a very long time to make the tools that I need > for my research in number theory, so I had to take matters into my > own hands. I suspect they won't see things that way. > I agree that they probably do not see it that way. On the other hand I do expect that they see it *exactly* the same way you do: For the most part the things *they* created exist because *they* had need of such tools to do the research that *they* wanted to do and it seemed to them that no one else had created the right tools for the job. (I said "seemed" because in some cases it might have seemed easier to re-invent what was needed rather than learning enough about what someone else had created.) In other words the reason (most of) those other systems exist is the same as the reason that Sage exists. The arguments for or against proprietary and/or open source models for development came later. Even systems like Axiom were essentially "open source" when they were first created - all you had to do was show some interest in the work of the developers and ask for their source code. I think the problem was mainly that there really was no infrastructure in place yet (e.g. the web) that would allow the open source model to work. Unless large government research funding was available, the argument that the proprietary commercial/non-profit development model was the best approach was easy to sell - and still appeals to many people. If by presenting Sage ISSAC you succeed in convincing some of these people that open source really is a viable approach today, then I agree that that would be a good thing! > ... > > Talking about what Sage "is", however does make sense to me. > > > > If you are not inclined to speak specifically about how Sage is used > > in your own or other people's research, then > > I certainly will speak about how Sage is used in my research and others > during my talk. The abstract I posted is limited to 2 pages, and hence > is a lot shorter than my talk. > Yes, of course. I think I was a bit mislead by the style of the abstract. Do you think quoting testimonials from other people is such a good idea? On Wed, Apr 30, 2008 at 10:21 AM, William Stein wrote: > > On Wed, Apr 30, 2008 at 3:26 AM, David Joyner wrote: > ... > > 3. A specific example could be mentioned which smoothly integrates > > several systems. As Michael B suggests, a group invariant computation > > in a number field mixes GAP (for groups), Pari for the number field (is > > this correct?), and Singular (for the polynomial ring invariant theory > > computations). > > > > I will demo computation and visualization > of modular abelian varieties during my talk, and keep the above > suggestions in mind. Computing modular abelian varieties > brings together numerous components of Sage, and is exactly > the functionality I started Sage for. It's fairly technical, > but not impossibly so (it's just homology groups of modular > curves, which are compact Riemann surfaces, etc.) > I think it is important emphasis in the abstract that your talk will include such examples. Regards, Bill Page. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ To post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URLs: http://www.sagemath.org -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
