I assume that they decided there was not enough use of Maple to justify the expense of the license in CSC. The sentence indicating that Sage will "replace" Maple is probably a simplification of something like ... "Those (few?) current users of Maple on our computer system may find that Sage [SageMath], a software package we don't know too much about, might satisfy their needs."
I think that someone with a considerable investment in personally-coded programs in the Maple language would not find that Sage is nearly a drop-in replacement for Maple. Also be cheaper and more effective to license Maple for a workstation for those who really need it. It is not entirely clear from the Taito website, but it seems that a workstation version of Mathematica is available. Also they seem to have a Magma license. Beyond that, I don't know if they have any stance about free/open source or not. In a larger perspective, I think that dropping Maple is not a positive sign. Here is an apparently major scientific computing establishment that has decreased its investment in symbolic mathematical computing, presumably for lack of interest. I think it is not so much that they are "switching" but disinvesting. What would be a positive sign is if CSC showed a particular commitment to computer algebra systems or Sage by (a) directing research funding toward such software development and/or (b) Offering specialized in-house consultation for CSC users interested in Maple or its alternatives. and/or (c) supporting subscriptions to off-site services (SageMathCloud which now appears to be CoCalc ?) for its user community. https://cocalc.com/policies/pricing.html I have not conducted a survey on the topic, but my limited observation is that Mathematica, not Maple, has a larger foothold in "scientific computing" establishments. Whether this is an actual endorsement of the quality of the software or a tribute to the dominance of physicists in national laboratories or academia, or both, I cannot say. RJF On Wednesday, November 15, 2017 at 12:35:24 PM UTC-8, saad khalid wrote: > > This is awesome. Any information on why they're switching? > > On Wednesday, November 15, 2017 at 1:00:07 PM UTC-6, wstein wrote: >> >> One tiny step toward our mission statement... >> >> ---------- Forwarded message ---------- >> From: Jori Mäntysalo >> Date: Wed, Nov 15, 2017 at 1:29 AM >> Subject: Sage and supercomputer >> >> >> Might be of interest to know. Taito is the second biggest computer in >> Finland, 17704 computing cores in total. >> >> -- >> Jori Mäntysalo >> >> ---------- Forwarded message ---------- >> Date: Wed, 15 Nov 2017 11:13:51 +0200 (EET) >> Subject: [taito-users] SageMath will replace Maple on Taito at December >> 1, 2017 >> >> Dear Taito user, >> >> There will be changes in the available mathematics software on Taito. >> The usage of Maple will end at November 30, 2017 and it >> will be removed from the CSC's scientific software collection. The open >> source >> software SageMath (http://www.sagemath.org/index.html, >> https://research.csc.fi/-/sagemath) will replace Maple. >> >> >> -- >> William Stein >> Professor of Mathematics >> University of Washington >> http://wstein.org >> > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "sage-devel" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to sage-devel+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
