
The Simons Foundation and Open Source Software - williamstein
http://sagemath.blogspot.com/2015/09/the-simons-foundation-and-open-source.html
======
intellectable
I think SMC will evolve to become the backend technology for empowering the
textbooks of the future.

At this point in time the state of there is no github for academia. I find it
strange that before the ultimately collaborative pursuit of academic knowledge
can be done there exists this formality of competing for cash. In contrast I
like how the opensource community has become a self organizing system
independent and driven by volunteerism. Hope to see the day where academia is
more like the opensource community and Sage Math Cloud becomes a platform to
transform the competitive academic world into a collaborative and evolving
opensource community of mathematical researchers.

I believe the hotspot for discussing academic pursits in math currently is
[http://polymathprojects.org/](http://polymathprojects.org/) as mentioned here
[https://terrytao.wordpress.com/category/question/polymath/](https://terrytao.wordpress.com/category/question/polymath/)
That is more like a blog or a forum site then per say a github for academia.
So, where is the future of online collaborative academic research?

~~~
williamstein
One of the NSF grants that I mentioned not getting in the blog post was about
using SMC as a platform for open source textbooks, just as you imagine. We
haven't made the proposal public before, but here it is:
[http://tinyurl.com/utmost2-pdf](http://tinyurl.com/utmost2-pdf)

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lumberjack
Sigh, my experience is that academia is still divided on this one. A large,
part, perhaps even the majority, support free software, use free software and
understand the basic importance of supporting it if possible over closed
source alternatives so as to not be hopelessly dependant on an outside entity.

But I've also met many professors who simple trust commercial proprietary
software simply because it is enterprise and therefore professional and
reliable.

Also in this case I think Simon might feel more empathy towards the fellow
business owner building a business around his expertise in mathematics...

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ZeroGravitas
I don't really know this area, but this seems unwise politically. An argument
that funding him would be good for mathematics (not open source in
mathematics) would seem a better tactic. As would a general, positive pitch
for funding, possibly with the addendum that many people suggest the Simons
foundation, but "unfortunately they turned us down and decided to fund a
closed source alternative instead" may have come across better.

~~~
noir_lord
Perhaps but I can understand his frustration her as the work he does is
tremendously valuable and a relatively small amount of money would be a
massive force multiplier for it.

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plonh
Simons always seemed to be more about attaching the Simons name to superstars'
halos, and promoting Simons, than about maximizing the impact of the
contribution to science.

"Buying a proprietary license for many researchers is better advertising _for
Simons name_ among those academics, then "funding an open source project"
which is relatively more anonymous gift (unless SMC tries to sell trademark
rights, creating "SMC by Simons" \-- maybe a good idea).

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noir_lord
Not a mathematician but last year I needed to do some serious (for me) math at
short notice (api provider for some complex calcs dropped us in it) and
sagemath with ipython notebook saved me as I could convert all the formulas
into python and then inspect and graph the output to give me an idea of what
was going on, if I'd have had that at school I think I'd have been way better
at math the ability to 'play' with formulae is incredibly powerful.

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rahiel
I always felt the principles of science align better with those of open source
software. Happy to see the good news at the end regarding funding from Europe:
[http://opendreamkit.org/about/](http://opendreamkit.org/about/).

To the author: the "Install LaTeX?" link at the top right is dead.

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mathgenius
As a physicist who also consults for wall st, I understand how Simons would
conclude (perhaps unconsciously) "free" software is software with no _value_.

"I was frustrated watching how he treated the other participants, so I didn't
say a word to him. I feel bad for failing to express myself."

If this is who you are, and I am similar, then you are not the right person to
be "selling" sagemath. You need to find one of those lovely but vacuous motor-
mouths to do this for you.

~~~
DanBC
> lovely but vacuous motor mouths

That's an odd way to describe people who effectively do their job of selling
the product.

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tomcam
Seems like a perfect match for Kickstarter, no?

~~~
plonh
Patreon is a better fit -- subscription funds from satisfied users.
Unfortunately, most users don't pay their own bills, their administrators do.
And administrators don't pay for free software -- classic free rider problem.
(That's why the grant applications are so important)

Over a million dollars to fund math software? Maybe, but not the
demographic/popularity mix I would expect to see at KS. KS is for initial
funding of a product that will be profitable at steady state. SMC is already
launched, but needs more steady-state funding.

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oandrei
Academia needs some control mechanisms. Otherwise, the scientific research is
at risk of becoming completely chaotic. Selective availability of software is
one of those mechanisms. In this case, a closed-source software is made
available to a specific group of people controlled by highly competent
leaders: the US academic community. This increases the prestige of the group,
and indirectly the level of competition needed to get there. Moreover, it
increases the prestige of the US universities. This also helps the world-
renowned science leaders to have more refined control over the direction of
scientific research and science policy.

~~~
wbhart
One of the guiding principles of the academy is academic freedom, i.e. the
freedom to pursue research in a free and protected way. So academics aren't
inclined to embrace "control mechanisms".

Prestige is the concentration of high quality research (as judged by peers) in
one place.

I fail to see how making only some software available to US academics (which
seems to be what you are suggesting), in any way enhances their prestige or
capacity to influence science policy.

I wonder if NASA would get more funding from congress if we told them they
were only allowed to use SAT-solvers in planning space missions.

But the notion that the Simons foundation is somehow trying to make software
"selectively available", rather than just increase the availability of one
particular piece of software they like, seems far-fetched to me.

~~~
oandrei
"making only some software available in US" \--- you slightly missed my point.
I meant "software only available in US". That would be impossible to achieve
with Sage, as Sage is open source. If you support Sage, you cannot control who
gets it. (By the way, North Korea would also be able to use it!) The point, I
believe, is to only support those projects which are under control and can be
used for control. Maybe I am unfair to Simons. It is just hard for me to
interpret this in any other way. It is not only about software. Academia has
other structures serving the same purpose.

~~~
williamstein
Is your original post above meant to be sarcastic? I can't tell. A basic idea
in scientific research (especially mathematics) is that we do NOT need
"control mechanisms" like you describe that prevent research in order to avoid
chaos. Instead, we have peer review, the scientific method, and rigorous proof
(in mathematics). Everybody is welcome to try to prove mathematical theorems
and do research, and the more widely we make the tools for doing so available,
the better. In mathematics, when a group thinks they have solved an
interesting problem, they write up the solution, make it available on the
internet (e.g., on arxiv.org), and other researchers read it. If the group has
correctly and deeply understood the solution to an important problem, then
their work becomes more widely known and everybody benefits. I see absolutely
no scientific benefit to restricting who has access to mathematical software,
mathematics papers, books, etc. And definitely no benefit to making such tools
closed source, thus restricting how they can use that software. One of my
inspirations for starting Sage was watching a young Manjul Bharghava (who just
won a Fields Medal recently, by the way) give a talk in which he explained how
his research had been severely frustrated by Magma being closed source, so he
couldn't modify it to do what he wanted.

~~~
oandrei
Dear William, thank you for your great work! My post was sarcastic. I
completely agree with what you wrote in your comment. But I do believe that my
guess about why your proposal was rejected is partially correct.

~~~
plonh
Sarcasm doesn't work on the Internet. Say what you mean, to avoid needlessly
confusing and upsetting your readers.

------
dkural
Well, if something is genuinely "useful", the people who find it useful are
generally willing to pay for it; unless they choose to spend their resources
on something that they deem even more useful. Thus in general I think things
should have a price; in order to facilitate the construction and maintenance
of said thing. More subtly; this also gives the users of that thing more of a
say in how that is built -- i.e in accordance with their needs as opposed to
arbitrary design or engineering decisions, etc. In other words, having paying
customers keeps you accountable. This is why so much publication-associated
academic software is garbage from a usability perspective - no one has an
incentive to care about users; therefore people don't.

A curious observation about most users: _Most_ Users often prefer the
good/service that works better / easier to use; even if closed; to the open
source one that is perceived to be not as good. Many, many programmers /
academics (those poor academics..) use mac laptops. They're nice.

Open Source is also great from securing long-term existence, and from a
reproducibility, and hackability perspective. Pursuing a commercial open
source model, if viable, could really address both short + long-term
sustainability.

I truly don't think mathematics departments in the US are "too poor" to pay
for software; there are nice offices, budgets for events, very expensive
journals, etc. Many universities have massive endowments. It is just that they
often choose to spend it elsewhere. I'd recommend charging a higher price to
commercial entities and universities, charging students a small fee; and
giving it for free to "3rd world", developing, etc. countries. Selling into
the library budget, or IT budget, might not be the worst idea.

If your student has a cell phone, they can afford to pay 20 bucks a month for
the cloud sage edition; instead of buying more booze, pizza, or another movie
ticket. If they are not doing that; it either means they value some other
service more highly; or they don't value their education & their time.

~~~
plonh
Did you read he article? Simoms bought a license from the closed source
academic authors, and gave them to every academic institution in the world
(but not amateurs). No one is paying for it (except Simons), so there is no
voting with wallets happening here. Simone picked a winner. Academics don't
really have a lot of funding , and purchase decisions cone from administrative
boards (like the folks who buy Enterprise Windows+Office deployments), not the
users.

See also: tragedy of the commons, and free riders. People like not paying for
things, regardless of quality.

~~~
NotOscarWilde
_> Simoms bought a license from the closed source academic authors, and gave
them to every academic institution in the world _

The article only mentions academics from North America in this quote [1].
Where did you find the information about "every academic institution in the
world"?

As an academic in Europe I feel quite upset when an academic project is
region-locked. Simons Foundation has lost quite a bit a respect from me for
this. (My original respect for them was for their frequent posting of lectures
on YouTube, which is something more institutions should do throughout the
world.)

[1]: "In the backroom during a coffee break, David Eisenbud told me that it
had already been decided that they were going to just fund Magma by making it
freely available to all academics in North America."

~~~
plonh
You are right. Parent post misstated the details; the reality is even worse,
and along the same lines.

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cantastoria
I think they made the right decision. I've seen way too many open source
projects run by academics die a sudden death when the two or three professors
that were maintaining them decide they didn't want to do it anymore (or
retired). In my experience, most academics are using open source tools not
because they are better or even "open" but because they are free. Few users
(if any) ever contribute code back to the project beyond the occasional bug
report making them essentially just as dependent on the core maintainers as
they would be on any commercial company.

~~~
kaitai
Lots of people contribute to Sage. If anyone here is interested, check out the
many SageDays happening across the US and the world.
[http://wiki.sagemath.org/Workshops](http://wiki.sagemath.org/Workshops)

~~~
williamstein
[http://wiki.sagemath.org/days69](http://wiki.sagemath.org/days69) is a
workshop going on right now, which is being funded jointly by a donation from
Microsoft research and a donation from a retired Silicon Valley software
engineer.

