Royalty free runtime for Mathematica
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg117034] Royalty free runtime for Mathematica
- From: Fonseca <public at fonseca.info>
- Date: Tue, 8 Mar 2011 05:35:32 -0500 (EST)
Hi, I'm looking for a way of calling the Mathematica runtime, in a royalty- free way, like some other mathematics software have. I know there is a .net/link. What I can't find is the possibility of using this functionality in a royalty free way, that is, without the end user of my .net application (or some other technology) having to buy the full mathematica or any other package to run it. That I know of, there's at least one other (big) software that offers this runtime for FREE. If there isn't something like this in Mathematica, I ask WR to please reconsider it (probably many of you have already asked), because this might become my turning point to start working with the other software, and probably it already is for a lot of other professionals. Even more that, in the corporate world, when I ask for a Mathematica license everybody asks me "what's that? Are you becoming a mathematician?" (lets hope that the new CDF can help us all on that), but if I ask for a license on another (big) software, the answer becomes "I think we have a couple of licenses on the research department. We could ask them if they are using..." Although any comments on profit strategy are welcome (and I'm already assuming the functionality isn't there), I'll consider them out of context on the current market where there are a lot of royalty free alternatives for this runtime distribution (like the one I'm considering). If so, why am I bothering you? Well, because I have a slightly biased preference for Mathematica (as probably most of us in this newsgroup have), but, at the end of the day, I just need things done... I currently have a spreadsheet add-in application that needs of serious extension, and I've been looking for the simplest free way of adding more power functionality to it. There is no possibility of buying some hundreds runtime licenses, unless they only cost a couple of dollars each, or less. Why so little? Because it happens that nowadays, in our competitive world, most corporates don't have any money to spare unless it is strictly necessary, and so the developer (assuming non professional soft developer) ends up producing a new business tool at his own cost (effort). Having an expensive runtime ends up the possibility of being used on all this small to medium projects that, in the three thousand people company where I work (and others that I know of), end up being the most common and also most successful tools. I fell that the WR strategy is much more adapted for academic and research fields than for corporate business, where other packages end up having much better adapted strategies. I've been extending the functionality of excel with XLL (that's like a dll based on a special framework), but I can't seem to find a way to link this XLL with anything else either than other free .net libraries, or the free run-time offered by the other software supplier. A couple o days ago I sent a post to this forum with a compiled library question (unfortunately, still no answer), asking how to link a mathematica generated C code compiled library with a program outside mathematica (can't figure out the data types, or if there are dependencies). But even if this ends up working, I can only use Mathematica as a RAD interface, and not for the more complex stuff, since it is not possible to compile those (other packages return a compiled library that keeps contact with their full runtime). Are there more people in this forum that share the same need? If yes, please leave a comment so that my voice becomes louder. Regards, P. Fonseca P.S. just on the day that the new 8.0.1 player is coming out, I need to add that, although the player or CDF idea is a good one, and there aren't practical alternatives on the market to do what the player does (and for this I think we all have to congratulate WR on the result), it is out of the question using it's technology to develop the type of applications I'm talking, due to the lack of integration with all other software tools that is expected and fundamental on a corporate competitive world.