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Re: A new FrontEnd

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  • Subject: [mg128147] Re: A new FrontEnd
  • From: John Doty <noqsiaerospace at gmail.com>
  • Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2012 04:55:58 -0400 (EDT)
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On Tuesday, September 18, 2012 1:48:28 AM UTC-6, djmpark wrote:
> The problem is that everyone that should have Mathematica doesn't have it.
>
> If they did, the economy of scale would probably reduce the price to a
>
> pretty reasonable level. In Canada the Province of Ontario (If I remember
>
> correctly) buys a copy of Geometer's Sketchpad for all secondary and college
>
> students. If our country did less bragging and actually cared about
>
> technical capability they might consider something similar with Mathematica.
>
> I know many will raise objections to a proprietary technology becoming
>
> "universal", but if the technical community can embrace the proprietary
>
> Adobe PDF as a widespread publication medium I don't see why they can't also
>
> embrace WRI technology as a widespread alternative medium (and MUCH
>
> superior).

There's a huge difference between PDF and Mathematica. The PDF format patents are technically owned by Adobe Systems, but PDF is a freely licensed open international standard. Mathematica formats are closed, proprietary and nonstandard. WRI is a monopoly within the Mathematica universe. That's not a problem for me as a small business owner: Mathematica is actually rather inexpensive compared to other specialized technical software, but a government has to deal with moral hazards that don't affect a private business.



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