Hi,
Wow, this is quite a thread! Here's the current version of the evolving
mission statement I have for Sage:
MISSION STATEMENT: Povide as soon as possible a viable free
open source alternative to Maple, Mathematica, Magma, and Matlab.
Since all of the above Ma* programs run well on MS Windows, that Sage
should have very good support for people using MS Windows is definitely
a critical part of the mission of Sage. Period. But what this "support"
actually means is unclear, and is what is causing all the discussion in
this thread.
Harald's remark: "So i would suggest an
additional workstation and run the linux version
and access it over the local network. Therefore nobody has to install
an application in windows..."
touched this off. Maybe this discussion has a lot do with how
one views software.?
Should we view Sage primarily as software in the traditional sense
of a local binary install with a GUI, or as software in the more
web-based community sense? I view Sage as being more
of the latter rather than the former.
For me, gmail provides a viable alternative to Opera mail,
kmail or Mail.app -- I used to use those programs, but now I do all
my email in gmail. Given the impressive success of browser-based
community software in recent years, it is not a crazy to think
Sage could provide a useful alternative using a similar approach.
For example, last night I had a long email discussion with the UW sysadmins,
computing committee, etc., who initially wanted to roll out Sage on all the
Windows PC's in the department. After a lot of discussion, it became clear
that it would be better for everybody involved if we setup an
internal UW math faculty-only Sage notebook server. Then faculty can
easily share worksheets, they can use all the commercial software on
the central server from sage (Mathematica license issues aside), upgrades
are very easy, and -- most importantly -- they can easily use exactly the
same sage worksheets from at home, when traveling, etc., as they do
from on campus.
That said, it is clear that a *lot* of people both want and need to download
Sage and run it on Windows machines -- the sage-vmware download is
more popular than all the other download types, and there are cases
like John Voight where running Sage on a bunch of Windows PC's in a lab
is very useful for distributed computation. I think 99% of these people
could care less how we package sage -- natively, via cygwin, via virtualization,
etc. -- mainly what they care about is whether or not it Just Works, whether or
not the install process is easy, and disk space issues. Regarding disk space,
keep in mind that a normal install of Mathematica is 1.1GB, so to provide
a viable alternative, keeping with 1GB of disk space usage is OK.
So in evaluating which approach we take with Sage to MS Windows,
we should focus mainly on how the end result will work, rather than anything
about the underlying technology. I.e., if via virtualization one can
roll something
out that works better than a native port, then virtualization wins; if not, then
a native port wins. Simple as that. As far as strategy goes, I
think the best
plan is:
(1) Create a usable virtualization method to run Sage on Windows (done)
(2) Create a really good virtualization method to run Sage on Windows
(3) Earn many Sage under MS windows users.
(4) Use 3 to fund hiring a couple programmers full time to make a much
better way to run Sage on Windows (whatever that turns out to be).
If there were a million devoted users of Sage on windows via some sweet
virtualization approach, I bet we could easily get funding to hire a
few programmers to
work on improving usability of Sage in a windows environment.
Since Sage is almost completely a volunteer project, I hope developers will
do what excites them most. Just do it very very well. Oh, and make sure your
code is readable since odds are you might be way too busy to work on Sage
in a few months!
-- William
On Dec 21, 2007 1:44 PM, Fabio Tonti <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> Just to give my point of view: (I'm not taking part in development at
> the moment either)
> A native windows port seems like a good idea, iff there are people
> willing to do it and iff it won't take any ressources from other parts
> of the project. I'm sure a port would also increase the overall
> quality, but it comes at a high price (of work).
> I'm not sure that sticking with a vmware image at reperesents a
> problem. Nowadays vmware is well-known and well-supported in many
> companies and I don't think that installing vmware is SUCH a great
> step to undertake for an individual. That said, the vmware image is
> easier to maintain and as Prof. Stein said, if some more effort is put
> in there, it can be made smaller.
> If there are people willing to do it, a windows port is a great
> opportunity, but if those people are missed for developing the "core
> functionality", I really believe that we should wait for the right
> time.
> And another opinion: I think the priority of getting into Debian
> should be higher.
>
> Btw, I didn't know that there is so much emphasis on Linux at the
> University of Vienna (since I live in Vienna). Thanks for the
> information, Harald.
>
> Cheers, Fabio
>
>
> On 12/21/07, Joel B. Mohler <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >
> > On Fri, Dec 21, 2007 at 10:45:06AM -0500, David Harvey wrote:
> > > (4) I wonder if it's possible for the Sage foundation to set up a
> > > server and buy a small number of windows licenses for remote access.
> > > Say like 4 licenses, so only four people can be logged in at a time.
> > > Maybe that's a cost effective and legal way to do this. (Oh yeah, and
> > > then tell me I have to pay money for the client software too. Please
> > > say no.)
> >
> > In my opinion, if you want to do windows dev work this hypothetical sage
> > foundation windows machine also needs MSVC. That's a fair chunk of change
> > and
> > more change for more users. It's really a *very* good tool though. It's
> > one of
> > about 3 programs that I'd say MS really beat the competition with.
> >
> > As for client software, I use
> > http://www.rdesktop.org/
> > with good success. I guess it could be coaxed into working with os x --
> > I've
> > only ever tried with linux. But, it's reverse engineered so there are a few
> > rough edges, but these are mostly confined to more esoteric things like
> > remoting the audio and stuff like that (which it seems to me, no one in
> > their
> > right mind would want to do anyhow.)
> >
> > --
> > Joel
> >
> > >
> >
>
> >
>
--
William Stein
Associate Professor of Mathematics
University of Washington
http://wstein.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/
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
