On Fri, May 1, 2009 at 10:32 AM, Brian Granger <ellisonbg....@gmail.com> wrote: > > Personally, I think it is important to have access to source code. I > do in fact read the source code of Sage (and many other projects) > often. However, many people with whom I speak (user's of Matlab and > Mathematica) don't feel this is important. Their logic goes something > like this... > > "I have been using 'M' for decades and I have done fine not having > access to the source. I don't see why I would need it." > > I find this line of thinking hard to argue with, because it is based > on their experience. > > I bring this up because I think we need to have better reasons about > why open source is important - arguments that are compelling to folks > who have been working successfully for years without reading the > source. I don't know what these are, but I know that we need them.
Are you sure we really _need_ these arguments for those users? I personally think it is better to just suck it up and compete for those users based on quality, capabilities, and features, features, features. There are good arguments for open source that do have a lot of relevance for certain classes of users, but I think we already know those arguments. It's useful to imagine how you personally think about other types of software. There are many types of software (e.g., image editing) where I don't care at all whether the program is open source -- I chose based on features, quality, and usability. I could care less whether XYZ has arguments for open source on their website. I do care that I tend to be very productive with XYZ. For me personally, I use iPhoto (closed source) to sort my photos since it is very stable compared to all alternatives I've tried, but I use GIMP (not photoshop) since I personally find it works very well for me for editing photos. -- William -- William Stein Associate Professor of Mathematics University of Washington http://wstein.org --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ To post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to sage-devel-unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URLs: http://www.sagemath.org -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
