On Thu, Feb 25, 2016 at 2:00 AM, Nathann Cohen <nathann.co...@gmail.com> wrote: > Hello Karl-Dieter, > >> As to the substance of Nathann's comments, most of this is really an >> argument >> about the GPL, or rather about how many of the potentialities in the GPL >> are >> acceptable to a given community around a GPL product > > This interpretation of my comments, if this is what you proposed, could not > be > further from the truth. My problem is not legal. > > After exchanging several emails with Bill Hart about all this, I was > laughing in > my bed yesterday at 2am. You will see, it's hilarious: > > 1) Bill gave me his picture of Sage's life. He knows William, and told me > what > he knows of how Sage was started. He told me of the people who were > around at > that time, their life and how hard they found it to get funding to work > on > open-source software. Basically, he gave me a picture of William's > attempts > since then to make Sage known, through getting funding there and there, > through academia through rich guys, through other grants, through SMC. > > 2) I told him what I knew of William: I never met the guy, and though I > started > working on Sage ~6 years ago my picture of sage is pretty much > William-free, > short of knowing that he started it. I don't remember [1] him entering > the > technical discussions of Sage or taking side for this or that design > choice. I don't remember working with him on any code, I don't remember > him > saying "I'll fix this" and "fixing this" later. Hear me well: since I > worked > in Sage, I always considered William as a historial figure [2]. There is > nothing wrong with him starting the project and moving to other things > later > of course, he just wasn't in Sage's landscape anymore. > > And that's where the two visions clash. For Bill Hart, Sage's story is the > story > of what William Stein does to make Sage successful. For me, Sage is an > open-source software managed collaboralively by a community of volunteers. > > In Bill's story, however, William's work on Sage never ended. It's like he > has > been trying all he could from the start, and still does. And on the way, > made > 'choices he had to make' like trademarking Sage's name, becoming the CEO of > SageMath Inc., like creating SMC, like trying the two together in name and > purposes and even in the ads because to him [3] that's one and the same > attempt > to make Sage successful. All choices that you saw me complain about on this > forum. > > That's where it becomes hilarious: I would never dream of doing anything > like > that without consulting everybody on sage-devel at every step. To me, > sage-devel > is how and where Sage is being 'managed', and led, and headed. On the other > hand, I never thought that William could have any specific claim on the > topic, > since to me he had simply never existed on the radars since as long as I > have > been here. At most, given what he did, he would have been listened twice as > much > as anybody else, but that's it. >
My (admittedly vague) memory is different. IIRC, the idea of a Sage company, with profits going back into Sage, goes back farther than 6 years. (That would make it 2010 but Sage was started in 2004-2005.) The question was not if but what it would sell. I think it was always thought it would sell a service (e.g., expertise at modeling a problem using Sage). I also think that this was discussed with the community and basically everyone was supportive. I don't remember a specific email to sage-devel about it but I think these conversations occurred in the early Sage Days. I for one lack both expertise and interest in dealing with a Sage company, as I suspect most other developers do as well. So why ask for business advice from people who have no expertise? Until SMC came around there really wasn't a service to sell. If the world ran on linux boxes, or if Sage ran on windows, the Sage company probably would not exist. However, as it is, it sells reliable web-server access to teachers and researchers (I'm guessing mostly teachers, but that's only because I think most researchers can configure linux box for what they need). An affordable service provided to teachers is a good thing, IMHO. In fact, I think the Sage company should partner with these companies that sell math Common Core lesson plans for a few bucks each and sell Sage worksheets for these Common Core lesson plans. So, Nathann, my guess is that your anger is a misunderstanding of history. However, It's also possible that there isn't a logical explanation. It's also possible that I am mis-remembering things. > In the picture I understood from Bill, however, it's as if William never > thought > that the people on sage-devel who maintain and develop this software could > have > any specific claim on the topic, since Sage is a software he created and has > been trying to push ever since. Thus, no need to ask for their opinion and > act > on any disagreement when it comes to create a for-profit company, to become > a > CEO of a company with this name, of managing SMC and making money with it > [4]. > > So, yeah. That's why I was laughing in my bed at 2am. To me it's like a 6 > years > misunderstanding. And of course it's not about licenses. I never imagined > somebody could think that the collective and free efforts of dozens of > persons > across years were but a detail in a bigger picture, and could be as easily > ignored when it came to decide of how Sage was to be developed. In this > picture, > none of this work even exists. > > Nathann > > [1] Please guys, don't try to find a lost sage-devel thread from years ago. > I > said that I don't *remember* it, and that's all. I'm trying to convey a > general idea. > > [2] Which does not diminish his past work, of course. Just means it's > something > from a past era. > > [3] Yeah, I'm sorry but I am reduced to interpreting omens since this > conversation about him does not apparently deserve his intervention. > > [4] To give you an idea: I wouldn't have seen anything wrong if William had > come > here to ask everybody to contribute *money* to start SMC as a group. I'm > don't know if I would have participated (no clue), but that would have > sounded like a natural step to me. > > -- > 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 https://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- 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 https://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
