211–220 of 316 posts
1 - 11: $$ 12. Doesn't want to show the world how bad the codebase is. Seriously, Mathematica makes naïve python code seem blazingly fast I've had the displeasure of porting 4k sloc of Mathematica to python and the script runtime went from 40min to 5sec.
Well, that's a cancelled subscription from me. I have no problem with them not being Open Source, but these arguments are all orthogonal to being Open Source. There is a valid argument for not being Open Source: "We think a proprietary program with a monthly license fee is the best business model for our company and product." You say that, I respect you. You bring a bunch of bad arguments, I lose trust.
This was written two years ago. Why would you cancel a subscription over it if their software works for you?
Almost none of the reasons have anything to do with releasing the source. You can release the source but still maintain central control. They shouldn’t even have posted this. Obviously they want to make money from their products, and that’s fine.
> You can release the source but still maintain central control. Until someone with a larger budget than you forks it and uses their immense resources to force you out of the market. Then you liquidate your company and someone else gets the rights to maintain your fork.
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I think to make it mainstream would require making it different. The number of people who actually have a use for Mathematica is pretty small. Very few people understand both math and programming. Most people who can program are already employed as programmers. In a larger organization, rather than buying 10 licenses for 200 bucks each, it's better to buy 1 license for 2000 bucks and have everybody bring their math w…
Well, let's for arguments sake consider the most important demographic in my mind: me :-). (That's what most people do anyway). Joking aside. I'd love to make Mathematica part of my toolbox, but the steep pricing makes me think about all the other software I pay license fees on that I depend on, and I need another software expense like I need a third buttock. If it wasn't a recurring license, or a recurring license a…
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Probably the exception is Blender, which is a big, complex GUI with gobs of features and is very compétitive.
true, why is blender special? it was originally a closed source program with a small community that became open source later, but it’s evolved massively since then and become much more polished and easier to use, which virtually no open source project can say
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> You can release the source but still maintain central control. Until someone with a larger budget than you forks it and uses their immense resources to force you out of the market. Then you liquidate your company and someone else gets the rights to maintain your fork.
Even if you’re worried about this, there are source-available licenses like SSPL or Elastic License v2 explicitly designed to prevent this, and which have seemingly been successful at doing so. The exact choice of license would depend on the kind of thing you’re worried about.
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> You can release the source but still maintain central control. Until someone with a larger budget than you forks it and uses their immense resources to force you out of the market. Then you liquidate your company and someone else gets the rights to maintain your fork.
There is zero chance that Wolfram's products would be "stolen" in this way. No one is interested in developing them but Stephen Wolfram.
Most of these are about wanting control over the design of the software - but releasing their code doesn't have any impact on that - I don't get it? Java is open source - Oracle still tightly controls and manages the design of Java. For example 'Bad design is expensive' - how releasing your source lead to bad design? That's a complete non-sequitur.
>Most of these are about wanting control over the design of the software - but releasing their code doesn't have any impact on that - I don't get it? [...] how releasing your source lead to bad design? The way to interpret his argument is to imagine an alternate past history where Mathematica was open source from the beginning and how that would have lead to an inferior product. He wrote: >[...] I think that it would…
OBS is another counterexample that is heavy on GUI and absolutely superior to similar solutions (where they don't just fork it and hide it).
Proprietary and open-source modes share the same challenges. 1. Developers need incentives and it has to be sustainable. Money is the biggest of them but reputation, fun and self-realization also matters. 2. Organization and scale. A team of experts supported by staff can do a lot more than a single developer. But a large corporation is inefficient and can fail to deliver. 3. Momentum. It's difficult for a software to compete with large established softwares like AutoDesk, MS Office and Photoshop even if delivers the same features and performance.
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>Most of these are about wanting control over the design of the software - but releasing their code doesn't have any impact on that - I don't get it? [...] how releasing your source lead to bad design? The way to interpret his argument is to imagine an alternate past history where Mathematica was open source from the beginning and how that would have lead to an inferior product. He wrote: >[...] I think that it would…
I believe GUI is a huge part of it. My rationale is that sweating the details of the GUI actually requires a profound amount of work, that is not at the top of the list of things that programmers enjoy working on. The the only way to get it done is to hire an army of well paid programmers to do it. And things like office and graphics software are nothing without GUI. Second, some software builds on a body of propriet…
OSS GUIs are exactly what you get if you leave it completely up to an army of pure programmers (whether well-paid or not).