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[Axiom-developer] Axiom and commercial success


From: root
Subject: [Axiom-developer] Axiom and commercial success
Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2006 17:06:46 -0400

>From my understanding NAG picked up Axiom as a way to sell their
numeric library. And when they partnered with Maple they withdrew
Axiom. The commercial success of interest is NAG's numeric library.
Axiom was just the sweetener.

Axiom succeeded commercially much more than I would have thought
since Axiom is really a research platform, not a production tool.
Amazingly, many hundreds of people paid for copies.

Having been involved with Axiom for so many years I find it interesting 
that my measure of success and other people's measures are not on the 
same scale.

I'm not interested in commercial success in any sense. A sudden
influx of money would certainly change the project and in ways that
would not necessarily be good, mostly because they would require
short term gain and thus short term focus. Nobody will fund us for
long term research. The very concept seems lost on funding sources.

Perhaps we need to re-invent the "patronage" idea from the middle ages.
Don't get me wrong, I'd love to work on Axiom full time. However,
only long-term research grants can minimize the harm.

Free and open source has given us the only method I know to conduct
really long term fundamental research outside the major universities.

My measure of success is that we conduct research into long-term
ideas such as literate computational math, provably correct 
mathematical algorithms, mathematically sound organization,
correct handling of provisos, etc.

The true measure of success is that we define, solidify, and
enhance computational science in ways that survive the next
hundred years. 

So I don't see Mathematica, Maple, Reduce, or any of the other
systems as competitors. Indeed, I don't know what it would mean
to compete since anyone trying to achieve the stated goals can
only enhance our understanding and thus help us along. Thats how
science works.

I encourage you to raise your eyes to the horizon and ignore the
rocky road under your feet.

Tim








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