Re:Why Wolfram tech isn’t open source (2019)
by phkahler on Saturday December 18, 2021 @03:54PM
(#29608407)
>> Most of these are about wanting control over the design of the software
As an open source maintainer, the part that stood out to me was all the stuff nobody really wants to do. For example, look how long it took GIMP to switch to GTK3. In a paid corporate environment switches like that are scheduled, assigned, and implemented.
I'm very fortunate to work on a project (solvespace) that has members who tend toward different specialties - build system, macOS, Windows, C++ modernization, algorithms & math. And yet I don't get to assign tasks and expect results because we are all volunteers. If we were all paid things could go way faster.
Wolfram has been going fast for decades and would not work as OSS. The best we have in OSS is Octave, Maxima, and Julia, but none of those come close.
As an open source maintainer, the part that stood out to me was all the stuff nobody really wants to do. For example, look how long it took GIMP to switch to GTK3. In a paid corporate environment switches like that are scheduled, assigned, and implemented.
I'm very fortunate to work on a project (solvespace) that has members who tend toward different specialties - build system, macOS, Windows, C++ modernization, algorithms & math. And yet I don't get to assign tasks and expect results because we are all volunteers. If we were all paid things could go way faster.
Wolfram has been going fast for decades and would not work as OSS. The best we have in OSS is Octave, Maxima, and Julia, but none of those come close.