On Wednesday 18 July 2007 08:39, Eugene Salamin wrote:

Bill Gosper asks: Why does everybody ignore Macsyma?

Perhaps it's because, thanks to Dick Petti and the other former Macsyma Inc. stockholders, Macsyma has self-destructed. You can't buy the software (macsyma.com is now an entertainment site), and it is being maintained and upgraded only by unofficial programmers, and yet it cannot be open sourced. What would be the legal status of using a Macsyma that was not purchased years ago from Macsyma Inc? If a project discloses its use of Macsyma, will its members be subject to legal action?

Could funding be found to create an open source computer algebra system? Extract the best ideas out of Macsyma, Maple, Mathematica, Mathcad, etc., chuck the ancient excess baggage, and make a fresh start.

Has anyone here tried YACAS, "Yet another computer algebra system", which is open source? http://yacas.sourceforge.net/ Otto

* Eugene Salamin <gene_salamin@yahoo.com> [Jul 19. 2007 08:21]:

Bill Gosper asks: Why does everybody ignore Macsyma?

Perhaps it's because, thanks to Dick Petti and the other former Macsyma Inc. stockholders, Macsyma has self-destructed. You can't buy the software (macsyma.com is now an entertainment site), and it is being maintained and upgraded only by unofficial programmers, and yet it cannot be open sourced. What would be the legal status of using a Macsyma that was not purchased years ago from Macsyma Inc? If a project discloses its use of Macsyma, will its members be subject to legal action?

Could funding be found to create an open source computer algebra system? Extract the best ideas out of Macsyma, Maple, Mathematica, Mathcad, etc., chuck the ancient excess baggage, and make a fresh start.

Gene

SAGE, anyone? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_for_Algebra_and_Geometry_Experimentati... http://www.sagemath.org/ It's language is python, i.e. they avoided to invent yet another ill designed language that serves just one purpose.