In a nearly orthogonal direction, I would point out that the programs Sage is trying to be a 'viable open source alternative' to don't require various dependencies, as far as I know. You download them and install them. It's unfortunate that no one has enough time to pick and choose the very best of each of the component programs of Sage to make a lean, mean computing machine, but I think we're very fortunate to have it all work as it does (and having multiple options for some computations is of course often good).
So for anyone who just wants software, this is very nice indeed. I would argue that many Sage users do not even know what 'proper dependencies' means. But in any case the effort needed to make this work the way you suggest must be gargantuan, except on any one given system for someone who uses that system a lot. - kcrisman -- To post to this group, send an email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to sage-devel+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URL: http://www.sagemath.org
