Re: [Axiom-developer] Re: AMS Notices: Open Source Mathematical Software

[root]

I had an offline discussion with management at Texas Instruments
about Derive. I'm concerned that this historically interesting
piece of software is simply going to disappear once TI decides
they no longer want to support the CAS business. 

I have asked them to build a "deadman" clause into the handling of
the Derive source code so it could be released when it was no longer
of interest. 

The lisp source code is no longer used. All work is in C++.

Unfortunately the end result of several months of discussion with TI
was that the request for release and the request for a "deadman"
clause were both refused.

It seems to me that the calculator business will eventually die off.
I have not used a calculator in many years. Given the falling price
and increasing power of PCs, I can't help but believe that the days
of the calculator are numbered. And, like Macsyma on Symbolics
machines, Derive is going to disappear forever.

It looks like we've lost another great CAS to the corporate blackhole.

A similar fate for Mathematica or Maple will leave a huge hole in
computational mathematics worldwide.

Tim