1. This project has existed for quite some time and nobody has sued them

2. The originator of this (Jan Poetschko) has worked at Wolfram for several years now

3. I think at least a number of people at Wolfram understand that Octave has been an asset (or gateway drug if you prefer) for Matlab, rather than a threat

Wolfram don't make matlab. They make Mathematica.

I think it was meant as an analogy.

I never said sue. I said pull all the stops to make the project and the developer go away (or coopt it). Maybe that includes suing but probably not given how expensive lawsuits are.

Usually companies are intelligent enough to use tactics that has the greatest likelihood of success: mafioso tactics. The developer won't, in all likelihood receive a lawsuit. He'll be given an offer he can't refuse.

Maybe Wolfram already effectively killed this project. It was actively developed for about 5 years (see https://github.com/mathics/Mathics/graphs/contributors), then Wolfram Inc. hired the lead developer 2 years ago, and basically all worked stopped...

I'm confused.

The lead developer up until 2 years ago, Angus Griffith's LinkedIn says he's at Google. [0]

In April 2016, Angus replied to a comment of mine "Mathics is still maintained. There are currently two of us working on it. The last release was v0.9 in March this year." [1].

The original creator Jan Pöschko's GitHub profile states "JavaScripter making the notebook interface of wolframcloud.com" [2]. His bulk contributions to Mathics stopped in 2012, but he still makes sporadic contributions to Mathics - see here he merged a pull request March 2019 [3] - suggests Wolfram tolerate the existence of Mathics because it's not a serious threat.

As the creator of Sage, what's your opinion of the legal risks of creating a Mathematica syntax compatible clone like Mathics in the light of Wolfram Research's fairly aggressive assertion of its IP "rights"?

[0] https://www.linkedin.com/in/angus-griffith-093433b0/

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11465064

[2] https://github.com/poeschko

[3] https://github.com/mathics/Mathics/commits?author=poeschko&s...

Yes, that's roughly accurate. Jan Pöschko (the creator of Mathics) went to Wolfram in 2012 and I went to Google at the end of 2016. Since then it's been largely unmaintained as I don't have the time to work on it unfortunately

Thanks for the clarification Angus - appreciated.

I'm going to posit that Mathematica knows that its value proposition is not its syntax.

Totally agree with that sentiment. It's all the other stuff too.

What I'm saying is that a syntax compatible Mathematica clone, with all the other stuff too, ever took off, then Wolfram Research's playbook would be:

1. try and hire the lead developers.

2. if that failed, call in their lawyers and assert their IP rights over the syntax.

It appears as if my warning bore out then.

It's a good thing they didn't pull the plug on the github page. Now it's possible for someone to carry the torch.

Maybe Wolfram paid him $1 billion for the project...the possibilities are endless...

The developer works at Wolfram, just FYI.

https://medium.com/@poeschko

He should double-check his contract to see if there's an "anything you do either inside or outside of Wolfram Inc. is automatically our property" clause.

Stephen Wolfram knows about this. He just hasn't taken action yet.

So, he's just been sitting around for several years just waiting to "take action" ... doesn't really make sense. I'd also like to think that Jan Poeschko is smart enough to read a contract.

>So, he's just been sitting around for several years just waiting to "take action" ... doesn't really make sense.

It takes ages to grow the sharks to full size, even with the extra heat from the volcano.

It's all well and good until someone forks it and tries to compete with mathamatica.

That's like saying Apple should be afraid someone straps a microphone to a raspberry pi and starts competing with the iPhone.

If the designer of the rpi works for Apple, the rpi is designed to work like an iPhone and apple. Probably owns the rpi ip the best yes its EXACTLY the same.

Is that a dare? :)

He'll take action when he determines that it's dangerous. Nobody except for police officers takes action as soon as they know about a problem.

If he’s in California, then the automatic exclusions are reasonably strong.

If he's in the United States, API copyrightability kicks in.