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Am I right to believe that there is no way that proprietary scientific software can keep up with open source?

LeifCarrotson 10y ago
No. Some have the benefit of proprietary modules (FPGA toolchains), some have large libraries of pre-entered and organized data (Mathematica), and some have early access to hardware (LabView, CUDA). Programming languages, perhaps, are less vulnerable to these issues. And perhaps open source could beat these applications eventually, given perfect competition. But we're not in that world, unfortunately.
- kpil 10y ago
  I think that open source programming languages will always win in the long run, since the target customer base knows how to program and extend the tools.
  - gaius 10y ago
    I'm not sure that logically follows. What %age of Python users actually know the underlying C well enough to make changes to the language? Even the number who know how to write bindings is tiny overall.
    - kpil 10y ago
      I'm fairly sure that most of them would be able to wing it if they had to. C isn't exactly that special. In all events, the percentage of users skilled in software development must be higher than among users of tools not related to software development.
Hondor 10y ago
For simulation it's not even close. Open source can't do user interfaces. Not a problem for programming languages, but for simulation at least, there's a slew of powerful but unusable open source software made by professors and then there's expensive proprietary ones with nice front ends that save enormous amount of time for the users.
plafl 10y ago
There is an over representation of open source in the amateur and student communities because open source it's usually free while commercial products are very expensive. It's true however that there is a tendency where open source is displacing more and more commercial products even in commercial settings. I, for example, prefer using python over matlab, even if matlab were free but I'm not very representative since I actually love programming and programming languages and don't mind working with virtualenvs and configuring emacs to my needs. Most engineers and scientists don't have the time or the intestest in learning to do so and prefer a suboptimal (in my opinion) language and more polished tools that Just Work. It's sad that to this day there are incredibly cool libraries like TensorFlow for python and yet there is nothing as easy to use for debugging or profiling as the matlab editor. I know there are alternatives, for example PyCharm, but I assure you that most non-software engineers are not willing to use "such complex" tools.

No. Some have the benefit of proprietary modules (FPGA toolchains), some have large libraries of pre-entered and organized data (Mathematica), and some have early access to hardware (LabView, CUDA). Programming languages, perhaps, are less vulnerable to these issues. And perhaps open source could beat these applications eventually, given perfect competition. But we're not in that world, unfortunately.

kpil 10y ago
I think that open source programming languages will always win in the long run, since the target customer base knows how to program and extend the tools.
- gaius 10y ago
  I'm not sure that logically follows. What %age of Python users actually know the underlying C well enough to make changes to the language? Even the number who know how to write bindings is tiny overall.
  - kpil 10y ago
    I'm fairly sure that most of them would be able to wing it if they had to. C isn't exactly that special. In all events, the percentage of users skilled in software development must be higher than among users of tools not related to software development.

Hondor 10y ago

For simulation it's not even close. Open source can't do user interfaces. Not a problem for programming languages, but for simulation at least, there's a slew of powerful but unusable open source software made by professors and then there's expensive proprietary ones with nice front ends that save enormous amount of time for the users.

plafl 10y ago

There is an over representation of open source in the amateur and student communities because open source it's usually free while commercial products are very expensive. It's true however that there is a tendency where open source is displacing more and more commercial products even in commercial settings. I, for example, prefer using python over matlab, even if matlab were free but I'm not very representative since I actually love programming and programming languages and don't mind working with virtualenvs and configuring emacs to my needs. Most engineers and scientists don't have the time or the intestest in learning to do so and prefer a suboptimal (in my opinion) language and more polished tools that Just Work. It's sad that to this day there are incredibly cool libraries like TensorFlow for python and yet there is nothing as easy to use for debugging or profiling as the matlab editor. I know there are alternatives, for example PyCharm, but I assure you that most non-software engineers are not willing to use "such complex" tools.