User talk:81.152.214.170

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Maple is not mentioned in the piece. If you want to argue that all mathematical software should be freely given away (as Digana does), then you are in season: please see the article on Santa Claus for details. Whatever Digana or anyone else might think, Maple and Mathematica have made a real contribution to mathematics, without being free. 81.152.214.170 (talk) 00:44, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

I reiterate, if by "be freely given away", you mean "gratis", this completely misses the mark. Money is not the issue at all here, never has been, never will. Most Maple users don't pay directly for Maple anyways. The point is that mathematics doesn't need legal restrictions on how it is to be done. Swap (talk) 22:31, 22 December 2007 (UTC)
On your Talk page, I had left a comment that discussed "open source" software. Your reply there criticized that, saying you preferred "free software" and "this underlies our differing take on the whole subject". So in my above comment (of the 21st), I used the same term as you said you preferred. Incredibly, you now criticize my using the term; you further claim that I "completely miss the mark" because this is not about money, even though I have nowhere mentioned money.
Your comment is poor sophistry. This is the second time I have seen Sage proponents resort to that—the other being in the AMS piece. I do not wish to debate with such tactics. You have made an important point though: if Sage proponents feel that they have to resort to sophistry to promote their product, then they themselves must not be confident of Sage on it own merits. For comparison, I have never seen Maple proponents resort to such tactics.
This discussion seems to have little to do with Maple. I suggest that it be ended, or at least moved elsewhere.  81.152.214.170 (talk) 17:20, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
I apologise. You didn't mean "gratis". It's just exceedingly common for some people to see everything in software in terms of money, so I made the most natural assumption.
Btw, I'm not even a SAGE proponent. I mean, SAGE is good, but it's not the only thing out there, and I don't even use it that much myself. I'm a free software proponent for mathematics.
That being said, you really think that freely distributing software is a stupid idea or something that doesn't exist like Santa Claus? What about the freely distributed software that does exist? Swap (talk) 17:36, 28 December 2007 (UTC