mabshoff wrote: > > > On Feb 12, 6:12 am, "Dr. David Kirkby" <[email protected]> > wrote: >> mabshoff wrote: > > <SNIP> > >> Michael, > > Hi David,
Hi Michael. >> Where does the Mathematica Home Edition license say you can't do >> research with it? I've herd this rumor, but nobody has managed to >> substantiate this by showing the license conditions. > > You are correct, as you write below, that my intention to write was > about the restrictions of using it in non-academic settings. One can > do research with that version. This thing about not being able to use the Home Edition of Mathematica for research seems to have propogated around the web like wild fire. The same point is made on comp.math.symbolic, an Apple users web site, Sage ... etc. As you say, it can't be used in academic environments, although students can use it, but a student version is cheaper. I feel WRI shot themselves in the foot at University College London, where the Mathematica usage was dramatically falling due to the price. We had a site license, but the cost had to be recovered from departments or individuals using Mathematica. As the WRI increased the license cost each year, so the cost per user went up. As the cost per user went up, so the number of users fell, so the cost per user went up even more.... etc etc. I recall at one point our department had a license for the whole department (150 or so staff). 10 years later and my boss suggested I should consider using something else, like MATLAB, as I was the only person in the department using Mathematica. The cost had just escalated to silly levels. >> I must say, I agree limiting it to only 32-bits is a bit silly. In this >> day and age, with most computers having 64-bit processors, and >> Mathematica quite hungry for RAM, WRI have put a silly limitation on the >> home edition. > > Well, Magma's student version is much worst: Last time I checked it > limited that version to allocating a maximum of 100 MB. 100 MB is just plain silly. I think limiting MMA to 32-bit is silly now, but 100 MB is a joke. > > Since you are a Sun fan you might want to check out > > http://blogs.sun.com/jaggerisgod/entry/serug_sage_math_open_source > > It is William's talk about Sage via Sun's education network. Nice paper. If William is ever in London and Sage is running well on Solaris x86, I'm sure he would get a nice welcome at the London OpenSolaris User Group (LOSUG). http://opensolaris.org/os/project/losug/ There are often talks about new or interesting software on Solaris. I'm sure Sun would welcome it, as they are sponsoring the port. The LOSUG meetings are quite popular - probably helped by the fact there is free food, beer and wine! But seriously, a talk on Sage I am sure would be popular. The lady that organises the meetings (Joy) does a pretty good job of it. Perhaps with the economic climate like it is, more companies will look to free software for their needs. Perhaps there is light at the end of the tunnel after all. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ To post to this group, send email to [email protected] 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://www.sagemath.org -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
