

Sage: Can There be a Viable Free Open Source Alternative to Magma, Maple, Mathematica, and Matlab? - dood
http://sagemath.blogspot.com/2008/05/can-there-be-viable-free-open-source.html

======
ivankirigin
I'd like to see a suite made for a normal, popular interpreted language, like
Python. I'd like to see it server side, built in a cloud, to have the
computing power I need. Compiling is no longer a problem for me, but boy can a
huge matrix routine take a long time. I'd also like subscription AI tools.

There is clearly an opportunity here for a 37Signals style company to provide
a Python tool or in browser that connects to the cloud and other services.
Someone please make it.

------
etal
This looks like a huge deal, and I'm surprised this isn't already in the
Debian/Ubuntu repositories. Especially since it's GPL (not clear from
sagemath.org, took some digging to confirm) and most of the base packages are
in Debian. I did find this: <http://wiki.sagemath.org/DebianSAGE>

Still, I'm shocked that this has gone under the radar for so long. Is this par
for the course for academics -- creating something impressive and waiting
years before publicizing it? Regardless, I will certainly make a point of
evangelizing Sage when I go back to school this fall.

------
muerdeme
This is pretty sweet. My roommates and I couldn't have made it through school
without the pirated copies of Matlab floating around.

~~~
bobochan
Don't do this, really. The Mathworks has a great product and offers tremendous
support, training, etc. Beyond that they have always been extremely reasonable
in their licensing, e.g. letting me run the Mac version on my laptop at home
and the Linux version when I'm at work. There is a student version which costs
you less than a lot of textbooks. If you want free then try Sage, R, Octave,
etc. Don't ripoff a good company.

~~~
0x28aa1f185a6b4
Students getting accustomed to using mathworks is far more valuable than the
cost of the student version fee. If he goes on to encourage his future
employer to get the business licenses/support then this will absolutely dwarf
what a whole school full of paying students would bring in.

Also note that in the majority of schools you have already payed to use
mathworks (through tuition) if you are in any engineering program. I don't
know why it would be so much more ethical to pay twice...

So, if you want to support mathworks/photoshop/etc then you should encourage
broke students to get it on their home computers by any means possible. Many
of these companies practice this strategy. Thus ends my pricing hypothesis.

~~~
bobochan
Can you mention a company whose official strategy is to have their software
pirated by one group of users under the theory that they will make it up with
increased legitimate sales? Yes, companies love having students using their
software which is why they give huge discounts on the fees.

Paying tuition does not mean that have "paid to use" Matlab unless your
institution has actually bought licenses for you to do so. If you are saying,
"We were using a floating license paid for by the university and therefore did
not need to purchase an additional license." Okay, fine. If you are arguing
that because the physics department bought two licenses for lab machines that
you somehow have the right to pirate copies without a license then you are
mistaken.

Bottom line: I support the good guys, the companies that respect me and help
me to do the best work I can. The Mathworks is one of those companies, in my
experience.

~~~
dangoldin
Bill Gates doesn't support piracy, but if it's going to be pirated it might as
well be Microsoft software: "Although about 3 million computers get sold every
year in China, people don't pay for the software. Someday they will, though,"
Gates told an audience at the University of Washington. "And as long as
they're going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. They'll get sort of
addicted, and then we'll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the
next decade."

<http://www.news.com/2100-1023-212942.html>

------
ivankirigin
octave is pretty good

~~~
aggieben
and the nice thing about Octave is that it's largely Matlab-compatible, so all
your knowledge of programming Matlab doesn't go wasted.

~~~
apgwoz
A few years ago, I was doing research work with MatLab and there were tons of
licensing issues at the university I was working with. I suggested we abandon
MatLab and adopt Octave only to receive responses such as:

"It's open source software, which means it's largely unfinished and you can't
guarantee that all the math routines are actually doing the right thing."

I eventually had to give in because my advisor was getting annoyed (and his
grant was paying my rent), but the point is that it's unfortunate that _more_
really intelligent people don't contribute to Octave, verify it's correctness
and talk it up. Please don't misconstrue my statement as saying "the people
working on Octave aren't really intelligent," but having the support of _lots_
of really intelligent people is the only way that it's going to make any
significant impact on the scientific research community.

~~~
nertzy
"It's open source software, which means it's largely unfinished and you can't
guarantee that all the math routines are actually doing the right thing."

Um... I think you have a better chance of guaranteeing a routine works when
you can inspect what it's actually doing below the hood. Something like MATLAB
is based completely on trust (albeit, deservedly).

------
aleclair
Sage goes in every field?

