William Stein wrote: >> Whilst I personally think a paid support contract, with the money >> donated to the Sage project is preferable, agreeing to offer free advice >> in confidence would go some way to increasing its accepantace in >> commerical environments. > > In point of fact I already do devote nontrivial time to doing exactly > what you suggest above (and sometimes in person, not just email). I > just don't put a specific statement on the website. > > This is definitely worth discussing further. > > -- william
Perhaps at some point, a new thread related to just the issue. Though actually to me there seems two related issues. 1) Commercial users Commercial users who might have *many* reasons for requiring 'official support' - to satisfy IT departments, satisfy their managers, confidentiality etc. For some government bodies, there might even be legal reasons too. Some research into finding out the criteria for permitting software use in different companies would be useful. 2) Confidentiality issues alone. Often non-commercial groups, including universities have confidentiality issues. I've done post-doc work in a university funded by commercial companies. In my particular case, the company concerned would not have cared what software I used, but would have cared if I was discussing the nature of the work on public mailing lists. Wolfram Research have now introduced the Mathematica Home Edition, which could attract those who have retired or just enjoy maths as a hobby. They might well want to keep some information confidential if they are hoping to solve some things. There is only 30 days of support for such users, as they could *not* get the 'Premier Service'. Dave --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ To post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to sage-devel-unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URLs: http://www.sagemath.org -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
