Wolfram has given you permission to do what they already gave you permission to do.
You can type in an expression (either directly to W|A or via a link) and look at the answer. They can't stop you if you compare it to the answer from Sage. You could use it in debugging some Sage code, perhaps. You knew that. Of course, you could also type the question in to Mathematica at UW. They have not given you permission to have a Sage benchmarking program automatically send a query to Wolfram Alpha (a) in a regression-testing mode to see if the answers are (still) the same, or (b)to see if Wolfram Alpha will respond to some randomized input in the same way as Sage. The regression testing issue is not so much of a limitation since the Wolfram answer shouldn't change, and so it does not have to be resubmitted to Wolfram. Indeed, this part is pointless, because all it requires is to run the problem once through Mathematica, where you don't need to have to deal with the Wolfram Alpha website. You save the Mathematica answer in the comment in the Sage program, or perhaps in some data file for comparison later. You only have to deal with Univ. Washington or some place that installed Mathematica. The second part (randomized input) cannot be done with Wolfram Alpha in any automated fashion, but you probably knew that it would be at least impolite to do so. Especially if it were set up so that everyone who recompiled Sage also ran the tests which sent 100,000 random queries to Wolfram. But of course if you want to do something like this, you could run stuff through Mathematica at UW. So doing that part is pointless too. It seems to me the only kind of scenario in which this "permission" helps anything is, say, if you are on a desert island, and are writing/debugging new Sage code, and you have internet access to Wolfram|Alpha but not Mathematica at UW or anywhere else. Maybe some kind of Chinese censorship internet firewall thing? Their response doesn't actually change anything from what you already had permission to do. Though it does surprise me that they bothered to respond. Perhaps to reinforce the fact that you don't have permission to do what they already forbid you from doing? RJF On Jan 2, 5:41 am, "Dr. David Kirkby" <david.kir...@onetel.net> wrote: > On 01/ 2/11 05:45 AM, Timothy Clemans wrote: > > > Wow that's nice of them. I'm amazed they replied let alone grant you > > permission. > > Actually, I've dealt with Wolfram Research a number of times over the years, > and > always found them helpful. That has included Wolfram Research staff answering > questions on sci.math.symbolic, where it was clear the intent was to resolve > Sage issues. > > So I'm not too surprised they have given us permission. > > Dave > > > > > > > On Sat, Jan 1, 2011 at 6:25 PM, Dr. David Kirkby > > <david.kir...@onetel.net> wrote: > >> You may recall some discussions some time ago about using WolframAlpha to > >> make comparisons with Sage results. Alex Ghitza in particular thought we > >> might be breaking the terms of the usage. I asked Wolfram Research, and > >> here's their reply. (What I asked is written below their reply). > > >> -------- Original Message -------- > >> Subject: [WR #2158917] Could you please clarify terms of use for > >> WolframAlpha > >> Date: Mon, 27 Dec 2010 12:20:23 -0600 > >> From: Jessica Helfrich via RT<permissi...@wolfram.com> > >> Reply-To: permissi...@wolfram.com > >> To: david.kir...@onetel.net > > >> Dear Dr. David Kirkby, > > >> Thank you for your inquiry. We are happy to allow Wolfram|Alpha links and > >> results to be used for the limited purpose of non-automated querying for > >> verification and bug-testing purposes within the Sage test suite. We trust > >> that you will continue to adhere to the Terms of Use associated with our > >> Site, and we would be very interested in receiving various examples of how > >> Wolfram|Alpha results were useful with this project. > > >> Thank you for your interest in Wolfram|Alpha and we look forward to hearing > >> from you soon. > > >> Sincerely, > >> Jessica Helfrich > >> Wolfram > >> jessi...@wolfram.com > > >> On Wed Dec 01 20:48:21 2010, david.kir...@onetel.net wrote: > > >>> I'm sure you are aware of the Sage open-source mathematics software > > >>>http://www.sagemath.org/ > > >>> which has a mission of creating a viable free open source alternative > >>> to Magma, Maple, Mathematica and MATLAB. > > >>> Obviously Sage has a test suite where results from Sage are compared > >>> to a set of known results. For example, one test for the factorial() > >>> function is: > > >>> sage: factorial(10) > >>> 3628800 > > >>> As you are no doubt aware, all non-trivial software contains bugs. It > >>> would be very useful to compare the result from Sage to that of other > >>> software which is developed independently. > > >>> One way, which could be used in some circumstances, is to compare the > >>> Sage result to that obtained from Wolfram Alpha. For example > > >>>http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=10! > > >>> shows 10 factorial is 3628800, so there is a very high probability > >>> that WolframAlpha and Sage are both correct. > > >>> It would sometimes be useful to add a comment to the Sage test suite > >>> that the result has been compared to that obtained by WolframAlpha. So > >>> we could write something like: > > >>> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > >>> WolframAlpha gives the same result as Sage - see: > >>>http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=10! > > >>> sage: factorial(10) > >>> 3628800 > > >>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > >>> Sage has tens of thousands of tests and that number is increasing all > >>> the time. Only a fairly small fractions of those tests could be > >>> computed with WolframAlpha, and even in cases where they could, we > >>> might not chose to do so. > > >>> Looking at the terms of use of WolframAlpha, > > >>>http://www.wolframalpha.com/termsofuse.html > > >>> I personally can't see anything that would suggest that comparing > >>> results with Wolfram Alpha, and documenting this would breach the > >>> terms of use. But when I suggested we could verify a result in > >>> WolframAlpha > > >>>http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=N[Integrate[+Sin[x]%2Fx^2%2C{x%2C1%2CPi%2F2}]%2C50] > > >>> one Sage developer questioned whether this would be within the terms > >>> of use. See:his comments at: > > >>>http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel/msg/1f8af294fbf40ccc?hl=en&; > > >>> One section in particular of your terms of use says:: > > >>> "You are not allowed to use Wolfram|Alpha to create something that is > >>> likely or intended to be reused as a data source for further > >>> processing, or that in some other way serves as a replacement or > >>> alternative to using Wolfram|Alpha itself. This applies whether what > >>> you create is in electronic or print form." > > >>> Sage, has a web based interface that allows one to perform advanced > >>> mathematical calculations. Clearly there are some calculations that > >>> could be performed in WolframAlpha, but which could also be performed > >>> in Sage. If you try Sage - you can get a free account at > > >>>http://t2nb.math.washington.edu:8080/ > > >>> you will soon realise that Sage is quite different to WolframAlpha. > >>> Sage is certainly not intended to be a replacement for WolframAlpha - > >>> in fact, Sage existed several years before WolframAlpha. > > >>> Sage has its own language, which is based on Python. Sage can only > >>> process input using that syntax. It does not attempt to process > >>> questions the way WolframAlpha does. > > >>> To save any further discussions on the Sage developers list about > >>> whether the use of WolframAlpha in the way I explained would be > >>> permissible, could you please clarify the matter. > > >>> Obviously using WolframAlpha to compare results with Sage would be of > >>> benefit to the Sage project. But it would also benefit Wolfram > >>> Research too. In the event that comparisons with WolframAlpha showed > >>> different results, and we concluded WolframAlpha had a bug, we would > >>> out of politeness let you know. In fact, only recently I made your > >>> technical support team aware of a documentation error in PrimePi[] and > >>> PrimeQ[], which I understand will be fixed. This documentation error > >>> was discovered when some comparisons were made between Sage and > >>> Mathematica. > > >>> Dr. David Kirkby (a developer of the Sage mathematics software). > > >> -- > >> 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 > > -- > A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text. > Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? > A: Top-posting. > Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail? > > Dave -- 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
