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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.
But, doesn't this indicate quite a poor architecture? Mathematica appears to be (or should be) composed of many different mathematical modules and capabilities that it can do. It should be possible to develop those separately while retaining a centrally controlled "beautiful" architecture to bind it all together.
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.
I don't really understand the definition of open source. I used to hear people say stuff along the lines of "If you just release the source and don't accept patches then that's not real open source" But the opinion on that has changed I guess?
this is commonly referred to as "source available".
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.
It sounds like their idea of open source is something along the lines of "slap a MIT license on it, throw it over fence, and hope random nerds on the internet finish it while we wait idly."
It would be more interesting to address why they chose a pricing model that guaranteed their products would never be a more mainstream consumer product and pretty much irrelevant for almost all enterprise contexts where a computational or analytical capability is needed. Because I don't think they are so stupid this wasn't a conscious decision on their part.
They would have to add more non-programming and non-math features. And at the end of the day, they'd still be competing with free.
In my own case, I've used Mathematica, and I love it. But the standard arguments in favor of using free tools have all materialized over the span of my career, and I'm happy enough with Python.
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.
I don't really understand the definition of open source. I used to hear people say stuff along the lines of "If you just release the source and don't accept patches then that's not real open source" But the opinion on that has changed I guess?
If you can fork it, it's open source, even if contributions are not accepted upstream. If upstream accepts patches but does not allow forks, it's not open source.
It's about the license, not the project's governance model.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't really understand the definition of open source. I used to hear people say stuff along the lines of "If you just release the source and don't accept patches then that's not real open source" But the opinion on that has changed I guess?
> If you just release the source and don't accept patches then that's not real open source this is commonly referred to as "source available".
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't really understand the definition of open source. I used to hear people say stuff along the lines of "If you just release the source and don't accept patches then that's not real open source" But the opinion on that has changed I guess?
> If you just release the source and don't accept patches then that's not real open source this is commonly referred to as "source available".
TL;DR - development model != license
linux enters the chat