On Saturday, 30 August 2014 00:35:01 UTC+2, Robert Bradshaw wrote: > > On Fri, Aug 29, 2014 at 5:03 AM, Bill Hart <goodwi...@googlemail.com > <javascript:>> wrote: > > > > On Friday, 29 August 2014 13:17:40 UTC+2, Volker Braun wrote: > >> > >> First of all, it always saddens me when the ugly head of nationalism > rears > >> its head. I thought the time where we only support German science were > >> over... > > +1 > > > You have misunderstood. When applying for German funding, the rules will > > naturally state that the project must benefit the people paying for the > > work, namely German companies and Mutter und Vater taxpayer. > > > > When applying for European funding, the rules will naturally state that > the > > funding must benefit the people paying for the work, namely the European > > Union members. > > I would say that the beneficiaries are (1) those funded to do the work > and (2) all users of the work. It's not like the money would go to the > US or even "the project." >
Then the grant would be rejected. > > > The idea that European funds should be used primarily to support an > > international project *with no direct benefit to European projects* > invoked > > in the grant is patently a non-starter. That's just as bad, in my > opinion, > > as taking public funds to work on a closed source mathematical system! > > You're a big fan of Julia. However, would you argue that European > funds should not be used to support it because it's not a "European > Project?" Yes. > I'd say the criteria would be whether Europeans benefit from > Julia (and I one could argue from a protectionist economic perspective > whether Europeans are the ones being paid to do the work, though I'd > just rather pay the best available person). > > Sadly, if the people judging these grants have this perspective, one > might have to sell efforts like "sage-combinat" as a "European > project" rather than part of Sage. > Yes. > > I, personally, don't see Sage as belonging to Europeans, it belongs to > Mathematicians. > > > One of the biggest things European software projects like Pari, Gap, > Singular need is contributions. I congratulate Peter Bruin on announcing > that he is writing a power series module for Sage based on Pari instead of > on polynomials. However, in a project like that, I hope that when some > functionality (mathematical or otherwise) is perceived to be missing from > Pari, that it will be contributed *to the Pari project directly*. And I > don't mean as a set of Sage build patches or bug reports. I mean as a set > of Pari contributions, to their code base, in their coding style, instead > of writing more code in Sage directly! > > I strongly disagree that the best (or only) way to contribute to Sage > is to contribute to some of its component projects, I didn't say it was. > and writing more > code in Sage directly should be discouraged. Sage is *much* more than > just glue, I didn't say that. > which is the perspective you seem to be coming from. That's > not to discount the enormous value these projects add to Sage (and it > often makes little sense to re-implement existing code) but taking the > attitude that all new work should be done in sub-projects and wrapped > by Sage is not the best approach, or in my opinion the best way to > make a good product. > > I didn't say that. > Here's some disadvantages of contributing the code directly to X as > opposed to Sage: > > * It narrows the pool of potential contributors. > * It may not be the best choice of language for a high level > algorithm. (Many of these projects were started before high(er) level > languages were even an option.) > * Languages, style, conventions (e.g. Pari memory management), > development procedures, etc. are not transferable to working on > sub-product Y or Z or Sage itself. > * It's harder to find and read the source (unless we make the > command-line ?? somehow descend into C libraries), but even then > there's probably more indirection. > * It makes it more difficult to integrate with other systems. E.g. > if you find yourself needing an algorithm that's in Y but not in X you > can't use it. > * It requires the additional step of writing and maintaining > wrappers for use in Sage. It's also a two (or more) step process to > get the code in X and start using it in Sage (possibly along with Y or > Z). > No wonder the libraries aren't getting contributions. > > I'm not passing judgement on this particular patch, nor saying we > shouldn't contribute to sub projects like Pari where it makes sense > (especially bug fixes), but there are significant drawbacks as well. > > I'm also not saying that everything should be implemented in Sage > directly. There are things where it makes much more sense to provide a > low-level library, in particular functionality with a well-defined > purpose and API (e.g. linear algebra, arbitrary precision integers, > ...). > > But if Sage aims to be a system useful for doing mathematics teaching > and research, and has any advantage over using one of the subsystems > alone, the same advantage would carry over when implementing new > functionality. > > > Why is this important? Because otherwise you would be taking European > money and using it to fund a project which originated in the US (I think it > fair to call it a US project). It does not enrich European software to be > developing Sage. This is crucial from the point of view of referees, in my > opinion (again, please bear in mind this is my own personal opinion, and > doesn't necessarily reflect the opinion of anyone else I have anything to > do with). > > If Pari had been started in the US, or Australia, or Chili, would that > make it more or less important to support? No. > Even if a European was > going to be paid to do the work to satisfy the "keep European money in > Europe" bias you're referring to, and they and their European > collaborators benefit from this work? > > It's not about who you are paying. > >> Saying that it is a US (or European) project is just completely wrong. > >> > > > > It was started by William Stein at the University of Washington. A large > > portion of the funding that built that project up came from grants of > > William Stein and other funding he obtained, including from the NSF. He > is > > also in the process of trying to build a company in collaboration with > the > > University of Washington to make money to fund Sage development. > > > > The Sage Foundation is run through the University of Washington. If I > donate > > to the project, the money is handled by the University of Washington. > > > > There is no way that you can justify the assertion that Sage is not > > primarily administered out of the US. And it has oodles of unpaid > developers > > all over the world. > > As you mention, the primary form of contribution is unpaid developer > contributions. Likely the next largest source of "funding" is hosting > Sage Days (which are typically sponsored and funded by the hosting > organization), only half of which have been in the US. I don't have > numbers myself, but I would be extremely surprised if the money > handled by UW through the Sage Foundation (outside of that for local > Sage Days funding) is not tiny compared to those two largely > international sources of support. > Irrelevant. What you don't understand is that in order to *get* European funding, you have to satisfy certain criteria. Arguing that Sage is this or that doesn't help you *get* the funding. I'm kinda sick of this subject now. Bill. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "sage-devel" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to sage-devel+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
