I'm also a bit put off by the tone. The way I see it, the non-free packages can be very useful, and I don't hesitate to use them when I think it will get my job done more easily. For example, I still find Microsoft Excel is by far the easiest way to whip together certain kinds of graphs, and MAGMA is useful for all kinds of things that SAGE can't do (yet). I don't want to be pushing an image of the SAGE developers as free software bigots. Our mission is to create useful free software, but this doesn't mean we need to demonise non-free software. They can go about their business, and we can go about ours.
I'm also not quite sure what is the point of advertising to the general public. We should be focusing our marketing at potential users and developers, which are mainly people in academic (research or teaching) and engineering settings. Publishing the "david and goliath" story line, just because that's what will work well in the mass media, honestly feels more like an exercise in stroking our own egos than anything else. david --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ To post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URLs: http://sage.scipy.org/sage/ and http://modular.math.washington.edu/sage/ -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
