> > Bill Hart:: > ... There is a lack of documentation on what algorithms are implemented, > what their complexities are, or references. Some projects are not > threadsafe. Testing is lacking and quite a bit of stuff just doesn't work > and never did. And there is a general lack of credit given to individual > developers in Europe by their own projects. Most importantly there is a > culture of not giving appropriate academic credit to individuals who have > made significant contributions to writing mathematical software. > > I don't see that Sage has contributed to fixing a single one of these hard > problems. >
I'm not sure if Singular/GAP did solve that problems either or has not more problems. Even if in general it is good to have alternatives (to Sage), in my opinion Singular+Gap is not the right way to do. So I hope there will be a new CAS star at the sky which blasts the dated Singular and GAP away. @referees: if you are reading this, just (let experts) evaluate the code quality (readability, test coverage, correctness, maintainability, extensibility,...) or the development process. You will not like the outcome. Every couple of days I hit a bug in Singular and meanwhile I'm not always officially file an issue in their bug tracking system because I was asked to do so. Singulars interpreter language has not even support of references (yes, on a function call the data is (mostly) copied! ) and we are not talking about data structures for trees or hash tables. Their groebner basis computation over intergers is buggy over years and nobody noticed or cared ( well, I do, and now Adi Popescu and Anne Fruehbis-Krueger are working on that issues ) Why is this important? Because otherwise you would be taking European money > and using it to fund a project which originated in the US [...] This is > crucial from the point of view of referees, in my opinion (again, please > bear in mind this is my own personal opinion, and doesn't necessarily > reflect the opinion of anyone else I have anything to do with). > Unfortunately in the eyes of the referees some of this arguments (EU vs US) could play a role, since what I'm heard from rumors was that one argument of the Singular+GAP proposal was to have an European alternative to the Sage project... Am Freitag, 29. August 2014 14:30:16 UTC+2 schrieb Bill Hart: > > One other important point when interpreting my interjection (which again I > stress is my own personal opinion), is that when mounting a campaign for a > large grant, here in Europe or elsewhere, one must very clearly communicate > what *need* is being addressed. If there isn't a clear need, you won't get > money. > > If your project is perfect, and you go around telling everyone that it is, > you will never be successful in getting the funding you desperately need. > The reality here in Europe is that mathematical research projects of a > computational nature struggle for their very existence. They are often run > out of a single lab with one or two main developers and a few postdocs and > PhD's if they are lucky. > > Some European mathematical software projects may not even be around > tomorrow if they don't get appropriate funding. Not because they aren't > worthy, or didn't have sufficient novelty, research value or smart people > working on them or because they weren't feasible, but because everyone just > assumed they would keep going on their own. They won't. > > These projects do not exist for the benefit of Sage. And in its current > state, no matter how noble or well-intentioned or international Sage is, > they can't! > > Sage does add value to those projects by widening the usership of those > projects, by contributing bug reports and build patches, by bringing them > publicity and in other ways. But one should never confuse this kind of > support with sustained funding. In the same way, those project are > benefiting Sage by being the best possible core components they can, given > the heavy constraints they have on manpower, time and budget. But the end > of those projects is not the enrichment of Sage, but the enrichment of > their direct beneficiaries, which from the perspective of a grant > application is the economy of the country who provided the grants, or the > scientific enrichment of the union. > > To that end, we must, in my opinion, be very careful when applying for > funds to "work on Sage". Who are the beneficiaries? How will they benefit? > What is the strategy to achieve that goal? Is it sustainable, practical? > What scientific merit does it have? How does it leverage the local > expertise? What is its novelty? How well is it engineered? > > That's another 2c I'm owed for my personal opinion. > > Bill. > > On Friday, 29 August 2014 14:03:06 UTC+2, Bill Hart wrote: >> >> >> >> On Friday, 29 August 2014 13:17:40 UTC+2, Volker Braun wrote: >>> >>> First of all, it always saddens me when the ugly head of nationalism >>> rears its head. I thought the time where we only support German science >>> were over... >>> >> >> You have misunderstood. When applying for German funding, the rules will >> naturally state that the project must benefit the people paying for the >> work, namely German companies and Mutter und Vater taxpayer. >> >> When applying for European funding, the rules will naturally state that >> the funding must benefit the people paying for the work, namely the >> European Union members. >> >> The idea that European funds should be used primarily to support an >> international project *with no direct benefit to European projects* invoked >> in the grant is patently a non-starter. That's just as bad, in my opinion, >> as taking public funds to work on a closed source mathematical system! >> >> >>> >>> What sets Sage apart from GAP/Singular (and, I dare say: Flint) is the >>> scale and the diversity of its contributors. >>> >> >> No, what sets it apart is the number of contributors. Flint has had >> contributors from all over the world. I would say from every continent >> except Africa and Antarctica. >> >> We are talking about how to mount a campaign for European funding, not >> about nationalising Open Source projects. And we are talking about the >> maintainers and core developers of projects, not their volunteer >> contributors. >> >> The reality is Singular is run out of Kaiserslautern, Germany, Pari out >> of Bordeaux, France and Gap out of St. Andrews UK. They all have volunteer >> contributors all over the place. But these are not paid employees, or at >> the least volunteers paid by another University (to primarily do teaching >> or research)! >> >> Flint is too small to be owned by a given university. The two core >> developers currently aren't even at the same institution. It has received >> EPSRC (UK support), DFG (German support), Austrian support and had a >> developer at Harvard for a time. Even its maintainer (me) has been >> supported from grants in two separate European countries! Flint has also >> had salaries/stipends paid for from Google Summer of Code and from MSRI. >> >> Saying that it is a US (or European) project is just completely wrong. >>> >>> >> It was started by William Stein at the University of Washington. A large >> portion of the funding that built that project up came from grants of >> William Stein and other funding he obtained, including from the NSF. He is >> also in the process of trying to build a company in collaboration with the >> University of Washington to make money to fund Sage development. >> >> The Sage Foundation is run through the University of Washington. If I >> donate to the project, the money is handled by the University of Washington. >> >> There is no way that you can justify the assertion that Sage is not >> primarily administered out of the US. And it has oodles of unpaid >> developers all over the world. >> >> >>> >>> On Friday, August 29, 2014 11:46:14 AM UTC+1, Bill Hart wrote: >>>> >>>> This is all to say nothing of the glaring problems, such as the lack of >>>> Windows 64 support >>>> >>> >>> Wait, did you just do a 180 and say that we should drop everything to >>> boost the market share of a failing north American software company? ;-) >>> >> >> No. I never suggested that contributions of code should be made to >> Microsoft. >> >> Bill. >> > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "sage-devel" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to sage-devel+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
