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Nasser Abbasi
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 Posted: Sun Jul 13, 2008 3:53 am Post subject: Re: Does anyone else think Wolfram Research are unfair to Un |
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hi;
"Herman Rubin" <hrubin@odds.stat.purdue.edu> wrote in message news:g5a944
[quote]At many scientific meetings, I have asked the
Scientific Word (I think I have it right) why they do not
have their partially WYSIWYG version of TeX available for
Unix, and they claim it would not sell well enough for the
effort. I cannot believe this.
[/quote]
Scientific word is being re-written completely to run on windows/mac and
unix/linux.
I have called the company many times wondering when the next version will be
out, and that is what they tell me.
It seems they have been working on this re-write for years. I think they
will make a release by end of this year or next year based on some
conversations I had with the customer support.
I use Scientific word (actually scientific workplace) all the time, and I
think it is a great program, but the HTML export part could use some
improvement.
Nasser |
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none
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| Posted: Sun Jul 13, 2008 3:56 am Post subject: Re: Does anyone else think Wolfram Research are unfair to Un |
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On Sat, 12 Jul 2008 23:37:07 +0100, Dave wrote:
[quote]Unix software was historically free, and to a good extent still is free.
At the most basic level, the operating system is often free (i.e. Linux
and Solaris), whereas Windows is not free.
That *might* make people less inclined to pay for such software on Unix
than they would on Windows, where most useful software has to be paid for.
There is an expectation on Unux for software to be free, but an
expectation for it to be paid for on Windows. I realise this is a bit of
a simplification, so I>m not suggesting it will hold in every case.
[/quote]
Interesting, as for *Unix*, as against Linux, my experience was that most
software was not only commercial, but expensive - and the companies
refusedt o port to PCs for a long time, arguing that DOS, then Windows
3.1, was not up to handling the memory requirements, while the PC lacked
the floating point speed. What software? CFD, wastewater process
simulation, river modelling, sewer modelling, coastal modelling. What
prices were they looking at? CFD wanted £10,000 annual licence;
wastewater processes wanted £25,000 + 15% annual licence thereafter; the
various hydraulic packages were also steep, in the £8,000 - £30,000
area.
It may be that 'Computer Science' types were expecting free software;
engineers were not! As for Unix being 'free', that was because it was tied
to not-so-cheap hardware, in exactly the same way as most buyers of PCs,
for a long time, regarded DOS/Windows as 'free'. *Linux* was really the
start of the revolution. Sun & their competitors were not offering
Solaris, ?Iris?, etc., as platforms for open-source products. |
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Dave
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| Posted: Sun Jul 13, 2008 11:03 pm Post subject: Re: Does anyone else think Wolfram Research are unfair to Un |
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none wrote:
[quote]Interesting, as for *Unix*, as against Linux, my experience was that most
software was not only commercial, but expensive - and the companies
refusedt o port to PCs for a long time, arguing that DOS, then Windows
3.1, was not up to handling the memory requirements, while the PC lacked
the floating point speed. What software? CFD, wastewater process
simulation, river modelling, sewer modelling, coastal modelling. What
prices were they looking at? CFD wanted £10,000 annual licence;
wastewater processes wanted £25,000 + 15% annual licence thereafter; the
various hydraulic packages were also steep, in the £8,000 - £30,000
area.
It may be that 'Computer Science' types were expecting free software;
engineers were not! As for Unix being 'free', that was because it was tied
to not-so-cheap hardware, in exactly the same way as most buyers of PCs,
for a long time, regarded DOS/Windows as 'free'. *Linux* was really the
start of the revolution. Sun & their competitors were not offering
Solaris, ?Iris?, etc., as platforms for open-source products.
[/quote]
I understand where you are coming from, but long long ago Unix systems
came with a C compiler so one could produce ones own code. It was only
more recent years the trend was to not include a C compiler. Now of
course things have changed around again, with gcc being free on any
platform, Sun Studio 12 free on Linux and Solaris. I don>t know about
other C compilers (on HP-UX, AIX, IRIX etc). Last I knew they were all
still commercial, but it>s a long time since I>ve used those OS>s.
The availablity of a free C compiler meant a lot of code was available
on Unix systems for free. I am well aware there was (and still is)
expensive commercial code for Unix, but a lot more high quality software
was available for Unix systems.
I>m not so sure Linux was the start of the free stuff. Linux would not
have existed had it not been for all free "computer science" tools which
were around at the time.
How many people pay for a word processor on Unux now? I don>t think it
is that many. This culture on Unix (and to a greater extent Linux
systems), might make it more difficult to sell things like word processors. |
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Dave
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| Posted: Sun Jul 13, 2008 11:46 pm Post subject: Re: Does anyone else think Wolfram Research are unfair to Un |
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Vladimir Bondarenko wrote:
[quote]On Jul 9, 2:26 pm, Dave <f...@coo.com> writes:
D> Sage seems to be attracting a lot of developers, with
D> Google, Microsoft and several other big names putting
D> money that way.
We did not have the chance and resource to test SAGE yet.
[/quote]
Who do you mean by "we" ? In British English at least, it implies plural.
[quote]Still, based on its components (Maxima etc), and our internal
calculations about Maxima, we now do not feel that spending
some dozens human-years could have shorten tangibly the
conspicuous gap between the commercial CAS systems like
Mathematica and the current open source CAS projects.
I realize that the SAGE folks keep developing also their own
(hopefully, efficient) code. Still, at the same span of time,
say, Wolfram Research pushes their Mathematica even further.
So, maybe, in time, the gap will only grow.
[/quote]
I asked on the Sage developers mailing list, and someone claims that the
gap is rapidly decreasing, and in his area of interest, Sage is better
than Mathematica.
I guess you will not really be in a position to say unless you look at
it properly. |
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none
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| Posted: Sun Jul 13, 2008 11:47 pm Post subject: Re: Does anyone else think Wolfram Research are unfair to Un |
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On Sun, 13 Jul 2008 19:03:02 +0100, Dave wrote:
[quote]
I understand where you are coming from, but long long ago Unix systems
came with a C compiler so one could produce ones own code. It was only
more recent years the trend was to not include a C compiler. Now of
course things have changed around again, with gcc being free on any
platform, Sun Studio 12 free on Linux and Solaris. I don>t know about
other C compilers (on HP-UX, AIX, IRIX etc). Last I knew they were all
still commercial, but it>s a long time since I>ve used those OS>s.
[/quote]
DOS came with a free BASIC compiler (BASICA in earlier editions, QBasic in
later ones.) BASIC is not of the same standard as C, but it did mean that
in the early days there was more emphasis within universities on
roll-your-own BASIC code, before Matlab & spreadsheets took over. And
BASIC/QBasic did allow you to access most of the immediately useful
hardware - ports, screens, keyboard.
If you wanted *compiled* code then the PC had a disadvantage, since all
the compilers were commercial - more money. But with a compiler costing c.
2 days of staff time, this was not excessive - and to use support
libraries (NAg, in my case) required extra money, whether on UNIX or PC
(or VAX) - with PC being the cheapest (and being a limited version of the
NAg library).
[quote]The availablity of a free C compiler meant a lot of code was available
on Unix systems for free. I am well aware there was (and still is)
expensive commercial code for Unix, but a lot more high quality software
was available for Unix systems.
I>m not so sure Linux was the start of the free stuff. Linux would not
have existed had it not been for all free "computer science" tools which
were around at the time.
[/quote]
True, & I over-generalised. But Unix did seem to encourage the idea that
'serious' software should be commercial & expensive, while the PC was for
cheaper, 'toy', alternatives. Much of the 'free' software was free
*because* it was bundled in as part of the *hardware* sales - Solaris was
not regarded as a separate purchase to Sun hardware, for example.
[quote]How many people pay for a word processor on Unux now? I don>t think it
is that many. This culture on Unix (and to a greater extent Linux
systems), might make it more difficult to sell things like word
processors.
[/quote]
What constituted a word process or Unix pre-Linux? When I was using
WordStar on the PC I had nroff/troff on the VAX (OK, not Unix). When I
had Lotus Manuscript on the PC I had Emacs/VIM on Solaris. When I had Word
for Windows on the PC I was still using Emacs/Vim. In the hands of an
expert Emacs & Vim may have been powerful; in the hands of a novice (me)
they felt like using the PC ED.
I feel that Windows & Linux saw the real rush to competing WIMP
open-source word processors. |
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William stein
Guest
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| Posted: Thu Jul 24, 2008 11:00 am Post subject: Re: Does anyone else think Wolfram Research are unfair to Un |
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On Jul 13, 12:53 am, "Nasser Abbasi" <n...@12000.org> wrote:
[quote]hi;
"Herman Rubin" <hru...@odds.stat.purdue.edu> wrote in message news:g5a944
At manyscientificmeetings, I have asked the
ScientificWord(I think I have it right) why they do not
have their partially WYSIWYG version of TeX available for
Unix, and they claim it would not sell well enough for the
effort. I cannot believe this.
Scientific word is being re-written completely to run on windows/mac and
unix/linux.
[/quote]
I can confirm that they are indded working on such a port,
since I talked in person for a while with the employee of Scientific
Word who is actually doing this port. He dropped by the
Sage booth at the AMS meeting in San Diego, and we discussed
porting in general, and that with Sage we are porting code
from Unix-based OS>s to Windows, and with Scientific Word
he is doing exactly the opposite direction.
-- William (a Sage developer)
[quote]
I have called the company many times wondering when the next version will be
out, and that is what they tell me.
It seems they have been working on this re-write for years. I think they
will make a release by end of this year or next year based on some
conversations I had with the customer support.
I useScientificword(actuallyscientificworkplace) all the time, and I
think it is a great program, but the HTML export part could use some
improvement.
Nasser[/quote] |
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