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Free Wolfram Engine for Developers

blog.stephenwolfram.com

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Re: Free Wolfram Engine for Developers

#11

Post by dominotw »

dmitriid wrote: post #8

> Why Aren’t You Using Our Technology? - It's arcane/esoteric - Its capabilities are largely unknown (I have mixed results with wolframalpha even for simple queries. Perhaps programmatic model is more deterministic) - Its licensing model is murky and needlessly complicated

> - It's arcane/esoteric

Even he admits to this ,

" What Kind of a Thing Is the Wolfram Language? I’ve sometimes found it a bit of a struggle to explain what the Wolfram Language really is."

https://blog.stephenwolfram.com/2019/05/what-weve-built-is-a...

Re: Free Wolfram Engine for Developers

#12

Post by misterman0 »

Just a quick reminder; my MIT licensed open source project Resin [0] does pretty much of what WA does. It's free today and it will be free tomorrow. Free to use in production, to clone, fork, tear apart. Like WA

- it's a linguistic engine

- it has a query language

- there is a cloud you can use [1] if you don't want to host it on-premise

- it has high level API's for creating language models from JSON documents (or in other ways formatted)

- low level API's for creating whatever 64-bit vector space you might want

- tools that help you in the analysis phase

- tools for creating and deploy HTTP endpoints for reading from/writing to your model

Next week I'm freezing the API's for I will have reached v0.4, because by then, at my day job, we will have completed our first "AI powered" closed-sourced product based on Resin.

For this project to have any bearing and to stay alive and well (and free forever) I need your help. I need a community of contributors. Chip in, it's for a good cause!

Edit, and here are the links:

[0] https://github.com/kreeben/resin

[1] https://didyougogo.com (currently down, b/c maintenance)

Re: Free Wolfram Engine for Developers

#13

Post by reikonomusha »

alain94040 wrote: post #7
reikonomusha wrote: post #3

> Why Aren’t You Using Our Technology? It’s not open source. Even if the engine is “free”, I don’t want to build an open source product with it and hope to be granted a “free production license.” If I build something on my own time I don’t want to ask my employer to purchase a “production license” as soon as it becomes useful. Wolfram believes that mathematics software (or “computational knowledge” or whatever he cal…

I don't care that it's not open source, it's a unique technology. Actual algorithms solving actual problems correctly . None of that fuzzy search that you'd get if you used Google. It's an amazing tool in its domain.

I absolutely don’t contend that it can’t do incredible things, and I think a huge swath of developers would be eager to take advantage of these capabilities were it under more permissive circumstances. I’m also happy for you that you have the latitude and willingness to build software in a programming language toolchain that is not under your control, both technologically and legally. I know at the companies I’ve worked for, including it as a part of the product would not fly with so many departments, most notably legal, exec leadership, and most SW developers.

The reason for its dismissal goes a bit deeper than the simple fact that it’s not open source. We pay for other software (like E&M solvers), why not this? Because its use is not compartmentalized. It’s a programming language with the world’s most expansive standard library. Just as is the case with—say—Python, folks using this have no end to what they would build, including company IP. The code would absolutely not be portable, and your tech stack would be vendor-tied. That’s a danger zone for any serious enterprise.

Re: Free Wolfram Engine for Developers

#14

Post by deckar01 »

misterman0 wrote: post #12

Just a quick reminder; my MIT licensed open source project Resin [0] does pretty much of what WA does. It's free today and it will be free tomorrow. Free to use in production, to clone, fork, tear apart. Like WA - it's a linguistic engine - it has a query language - there is a cloud you can use [1] if you don't want to host it on-premise - it has high level API's for creating language models from JSON documents (or i…

> does pretty much of what WA does... it's a linguistic engine

Wolfram Alpha is a symbolic computation engine. I'm sure it does some natural language parsing for queries on the website, but I doubt that is an important feature for most developers considering this engine for production applications.

Re: Free Wolfram Engine for Developers

#15

Post by dallamaneni »

misterman0 wrote: post #12

Just a quick reminder; my MIT licensed open source project Resin [0] does pretty much of what WA does. It's free today and it will be free tomorrow. Free to use in production, to clone, fork, tear apart. Like WA - it's a linguistic engine - it has a query language - there is a cloud you can use [1] if you don't want to host it on-premise - it has high level API's for creating language models from JSON documents (or i…

I think you are confusing Wolfram Language (WL) with Wolfram Alpha (WA).

> my MIT licensed open source project Resin [0] does pretty much of what WA does

Does it? Resin looks more like an NLP framework at a quick glance. WA is an actual answering engine with data included. I fail to see a comparison. Not to mention the website is down.

Re: Free Wolfram Engine for Developers

#16

Post by reikonomusha »

dmitriid wrote: post #6
reikonomusha wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Open-source projects approved by Wolfram. “You can’t use this free thing to make other actually free things.”

Isn't that a common thing for commercial products that are provided for free to students, open source projects, non-profit organisations etc.? You have to prove that you're going to use it for what the license allows.

Perhaps I’m being a stickler for language, but I don’t consider it “free for open source projects” if I have to contact them to get permission to use it in an open source project. My beef is that the word “free” is being thrown around in this article. They should say something more true, like “we provide this engine for experimental personal use at no charge, and if you want to use it for something serious (open source, your company, etc.) contact us for a license.”

Re: Free Wolfram Engine for Developers

#17

Post by misterman0 »

deckar01 wrote: post #14
misterman0 wrote: post #12

Just a quick reminder; my MIT licensed open source project Resin [0] does pretty much of what WA does. It's free today and it will be free tomorrow. Free to use in production, to clone, fork, tear apart. Like WA - it's a linguistic engine - it has a query language - there is a cloud you can use [1] if you don't want to host it on-premise - it has high level API's for creating language models from JSON documents (or i…

> does pretty much of what WA does... it's a linguistic engine Wolfram Alpha is a symbolic computation engine. I'm sure it does some natural language parsing for queries on the website, but I doubt that is an important feature for most developers considering this engine for production applications.

>> Wolfram Alpha is a symbolic computation engine.

That's a great piece of technology to have when you are trying to get machines to understand humans.

The reason Resin is not a symbolic computation engine is because that model hasn't been designed yet. Luckily Resin is a vector space framework that you can use to nest spaces together or transform into new spaces. Building on Resins capabilities for creating models from any 64-bit embedding I'm not quite sure if there is anything Resin cannot model.

Re: Free Wolfram Engine for Developers

#18

Post by misterman0 »

dallamaneni wrote: post #15
misterman0 wrote: post #12

Just a quick reminder; my MIT licensed open source project Resin [0] does pretty much of what WA does. It's free today and it will be free tomorrow. Free to use in production, to clone, fork, tear apart. Like WA - it's a linguistic engine - it has a query language - there is a cloud you can use [1] if you don't want to host it on-premise - it has high level API's for creating language models from JSON documents (or i…

I think you are confusing Wolfram Language (WL) with Wolfram Alpha (WA). > my MIT licensed open source project Resin [0] does pretty much of what WA does Does it? Resin looks more like an NLP framework at a quick glance. WA is an actual answering engine with data included. I fail to see a comparison. Not to mention the website is down.

>> I fail to see a comparison.

Resin is a vector space framework. Upon that base I also built a NLP engine. And a chat bot. A search engine. Also, a anonymous profiler.

So, yeah, it's more than an NLP engine. But it's not exactly Wolfram. You're right about that.

Re: Free Wolfram Engine for Developers

#19

Post by reikonomusha »

misterman0 wrote: post #17
deckar01 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> does pretty much of what WA does... it's a linguistic engine Wolfram Alpha is a symbolic computation engine. I'm sure it does some natural language parsing for queries on the website, but I doubt that is an important feature for most developers considering this engine for production applications.

>> Wolfram Alpha is a symbolic computation engine. That's a great piece of technology to have when you are trying to get machines to understand humans. The reason Resin is not a symbolic computation engine is because that model hasn't been designed yet. Luckily Resin is a vector space framework that you can use to nest spaces together or transform into new spaces. Building on Resins capabilities for creating models f…

Yeah, but, come on. Isn’t this oversimplifying? “My computer uses bits. That means anything you can make out of bits can run on my computer.” It’s true but essentially vacuous. The value is/includes these difficult-to-build technologies, so the mere fact they could be included isn’t so meaningful and doesn’t add much value.

Re: Free Wolfram Engine for Developers

#20

Post by Crinus »

reikonomusha wrote: post #16
dmitriid wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that a common thing for commercial products that are provided for free to students, open source projects, non-profit organisations etc.? You have to prove that you're going to use it for what the license allows.

Perhaps I’m being a stickler for language, but I don’t consider it “free for open source projects” if I have to contact them to get permission to use it in an open source project. My beef is that the word “free” is being thrown around in this article. They should say something more true, like “we provide this engine for experimental personal use at no charge, and if you want to use it for something serious (open sour…

Free means no charge for the vast majority of people who can understand English.
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