Hi Sage-devel, My brother, who is businessman and is neither a mathematician nor a serious programmer, just sent me a draft of a "press release" for SAGE that he wrote. I wonder what you think of it? We could polish it up and send it to some media outlets at the appropriate moment (another question is when that moment be):
------------------------------------------ FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: William Stein Associate Professor of Mathematics University of Washington Tel: 206-290-6427 [EMAIL PROTECTED] UW Math Professor Professor is David (vs Goliath) Seattle, May 16, 2007 University of Washington math professor William Stein and his team are the "David" taking on the "Goliaths" of the math software world including powerhouses such as Magma, Maple, Mathematica, and MATLAB. For decades, these larger organizations have had a stranglehold on math software. The result has been software with limited functionality at a very high price. Professor Stein has brought together a global, grassroots team of mathematicians and programmers to create a free, open-source, alternative to the Goliaths of math software. The project is called SAGE, which stands for Software for Algebra and Geometry Experimentation. The program is open-source and completely free. It can be downloaded or run via a web interface at sagemath.org. The importance of the software being open-source cannot be understated and is a key differentiating factor between SAGE and other math software, much like the difference between the Linux operating system and Microsoft Windows. Open-source software allows users to go in to the code, add their own improvements, and then submit them back to the SAGE team. These kinds of improvements simply can't happen with the competing math software on the market. Also, in mathematics, an understanding of the code that performs the calculation is essential to using it in any mathematical proof. Hidden code that math non-open-source software prevents this understanding greatly limits its ability to be used in mathematical proofs. Users of the software have initially been those from the mathematics community, but could in the future also be from government, business, and the general public. Sage Days 4, the fourth developers workshop for the project, will be held at the University of Washington from June 12 to 17. The workshop is funded in part by a National Science Foundation grant. For more information, visit sagemath.org or email [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- William Stein Associate Professor of Mathematics University of Washington http://www.williamstein.org --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ To post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URLs: http://sage.scipy.org/sage/ and http://modular.math.washington.edu/sage/ -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
