Wow that's nice of them. I'm amazed they replied let alone grant you permission.
On Sat, Jan 1, 2011 at 6:25 PM, Dr. David Kirkby <david.kir...@onetel.net> wrote: > You may recall some discussions some time ago about using WolframAlpha to > make comparisons with Sage results. Alex Ghitza in particular thought we > might be breaking the terms of the usage. I asked Wolfram Research, and > here's their reply. (What I asked is written below their reply). > > -------- Original Message -------- > Subject: [WR #2158917] Could you please clarify terms of use for > WolframAlpha > Date: Mon, 27 Dec 2010 12:20:23 -0600 > From: Jessica Helfrich via RT <permissi...@wolfram.com> > Reply-To: permissi...@wolfram.com > To: david.kir...@onetel.net > > Dear Dr. David Kirkby, > > Thank you for your inquiry. We are happy to allow Wolfram|Alpha links and > results to be used for the limited purpose of non-automated querying for > verification and bug-testing purposes within the Sage test suite. We trust > that you will continue to adhere to the Terms of Use associated with our > Site, and we would be very interested in receiving various examples of how > Wolfram|Alpha results were useful with this project. > > Thank you for your interest in Wolfram|Alpha and we look forward to hearing > from you soon. > > Sincerely, > Jessica Helfrich > Wolfram > jessi...@wolfram.com > > > On Wed Dec 01 20:48:21 2010, david.kir...@onetel.net wrote: >> >> I'm sure you are aware of the Sage open-source mathematics software >> >> http://www.sagemath.org/ >> >> which has a mission of creating a viable free open source alternative >> to Magma, Maple, Mathematica and MATLAB. >> >> Obviously Sage has a test suite where results from Sage are compared >> to a set of known results. For example, one test for the factorial() >> function is: >> >> sage: factorial(10) >> 3628800 >> >> As you are no doubt aware, all non-trivial software contains bugs. It >> would be very useful to compare the result from Sage to that of other >> software which is developed independently. >> >> One way, which could be used in some circumstances, is to compare the >> Sage result to that obtained from Wolfram Alpha. For example >> >> http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=10! >> >> shows 10 factorial is 3628800, so there is a very high probability >> that WolframAlpha and Sage are both correct. >> >> It would sometimes be useful to add a comment to the Sage test suite >> that the result has been compared to that obtained by WolframAlpha. So >> we could write something like: >> >> >> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- >> WolframAlpha gives the same result as Sage - see: >> http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=10! >> >> sage: factorial(10) >> 3628800 >> >> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- >> >> Sage has tens of thousands of tests and that number is increasing all >> the time. Only a fairly small fractions of those tests could be >> computed with WolframAlpha, and even in cases where they could, we >> might not chose to do so. >> >> Looking at the terms of use of WolframAlpha, >> >> http://www.wolframalpha.com/termsofuse.html >> >> I personally can't see anything that would suggest that comparing >> results with Wolfram Alpha, and documenting this would breach the >> terms of use. But when I suggested we could verify a result in >> WolframAlpha >> >> >> http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=N[Integrate[+Sin[x]%2Fx^2%2C{x%2C1%2CPi%2F2}]%2C50] >> >> one Sage developer questioned whether this would be within the terms >> of use. See:his comments at: >> >> http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel/msg/1f8af294fbf40ccc?hl=en&; >> >> One section in particular of your terms of use says:: >> >> "You are not allowed to use Wolfram|Alpha to create something that is >> likely or intended to be reused as a data source for further >> processing, or that in some other way serves as a replacement or >> alternative to using Wolfram|Alpha itself. This applies whether what >> you create is in electronic or print form." >> >> Sage, has a web based interface that allows one to perform advanced >> mathematical calculations. Clearly there are some calculations that >> could be performed in WolframAlpha, but which could also be performed >> in Sage. If you try Sage - you can get a free account at >> >> http://t2nb.math.washington.edu:8080/ >> >> you will soon realise that Sage is quite different to WolframAlpha. >> Sage is certainly not intended to be a replacement for WolframAlpha - >> in fact, Sage existed several years before WolframAlpha. >> >> Sage has its own language, which is based on Python. Sage can only >> process input using that syntax. It does not attempt to process >> questions the way WolframAlpha does. >> >> To save any further discussions on the Sage developers list about >> whether the use of WolframAlpha in the way I explained would be >> permissible, could you please clarify the matter. >> >> Obviously using WolframAlpha to compare results with Sage would be of >> benefit to the Sage project. But it would also benefit Wolfram >> Research too. In the event that comparisons with WolframAlpha showed >> different results, and we concluded WolframAlpha had a bug, we would >> out of politeness let you know. In fact, only recently I made your >> technical support team aware of a documentation error in PrimePi[] and >> PrimeQ[], which I understand will be fixed. This documentation error >> was discovered when some comparisons were made between Sage and >> Mathematica. >> >> Dr. David Kirkby (a developer of the Sage mathematics software). >> > > > > > -- > To post to this group, send an email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com > To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to > sage-devel+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel > URL: http://www.sagemath.org > -- To post to this group, send an email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to sage-devel+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URL: http://www.sagemath.org
