David Joyner and William Stein published an opinion piece in the AMS Notices raising (yet again) the issue of mathematical results that depend on closed source symbolic mathematics. They would like to see open source efforts funded. <http://www.ams.org/notices/200710/tx071001279.pdf>
They raise the issue (raised here many times in the past) about funding open source mathematical software. SAGE is a university based project and has a funding model that NSF recognizes. Axiom and other projects don't fit any model and neither the NSF nor INRIA is able (as far as I know from direct discussions) to consider funding open source projects like Axiom, which are not supported by standard institutions, such as Universities. My direct discussions with the NSF, on several occasions, raises the point that the NSF claims that it does not fund projects which compete with commercial software. This position is frustrating on several points. First, the NSF funds the purchase of commercial software at universities. Thus they explicity fund software that competes with open source. Second, (as I understand it) SAGE is an effort to create an open source competitor to the current closed source systems. I applaud their efforts and think this is very valuable. However, I'm not sure how much funding they can get from the NSF with such commercially-competitive goals. Third, even if the NSF funded SAGE, how would those funds benefit the various subprojects like Axiom? Open source is mostly volunteer work done in "spare time". While it is amusing to daydream of being paid to develop open source computational mathematics on a full time basis, it seems unlikely that this could lead to more than just small grants. The expertise and continuity needed to do research work requires longer term funding. Fourth, most of the work on open source projects like Axiom is multi-national. I don't see that INRIA and NSF have a joint-funding model. How could a project like Axiom give grants to people in France out of NSF funds (or INRIA-funded U.S. workers)? In my experience, this usually involved "visiting scientist" arrangements but open source has no place to visit besides a website. Fifth, Axiom is NOT intended to compete with software like Mathematica or Maple. Axiom's goals are long term scientific research ideas, such as proving the algorithms correct, documenting the algorithms, following a strong mathematical basis for the structure of the algebra hierarchy, etc. None of these goals compete with MMA or Maple. The NSF is intended to fund this kinds of scientific research but apparently cannot. Sixth, computational mathematics, which currently rests on closed source commercial efforts, will eventually suffer from a massive "black hole" once the current software dies. Suppose Wolfram Research and Maplesoft go out of business. That might seem unlikely but there are very few companies that last more than 50 years. Since software is now considered an asset it cannot be simply given away. (Even if the software was opened-sourced it is poorly documented according to people who know the source). We could have the situation like Macsyma, where the company folded and the source code is never released. Is this what the NSF sees as the correct long term basis for a fundamental science like computational mathematics? Seventh, if not funding the work directly, isn't it possible to at least fund things like an 'Axiom workshop' so that open source developers could have their travel and lodging paid for by grants? Face-to-face meetings would greatly help the development work. I could go on but I will stop here. Axiom is basic science and has long term plans to be the foundation of open, provably correct, computational mathematics. Sadly, I feel that funding is only likely after the fact. Oh well. The work continues. Tim Daly [EMAIL PROTECTED] _______________________________________________ Axiom-developer mailing list [email protected] http://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/axiom-developer
