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A lot of people don’t know absolutely massive amount of functionality that is stuffed in to Mathematica. It does everything from symbolic math to astronomy to e

A lot of people don’t know absolutely massive amount of functionality that is stuffed in to Mathematica. It does everything from symbolic math to astronomy to economics to deep learning to biology to ... If Wolfram had figured out how to make his software free while still having sustained business, he would undoubtedly be the hero of the tech/nerd/geek world, perhaps shoulder to shoulder with Jobs or Linus or Gates - at least for the tech crowd.

nels0n 8y ago
You must be a fool. The amount of material this guy relies on is the work of his subordinates. Matthew Cook, etc ... he would never be considered anything like a hero in the eyes of a true nerd. He is stands for the dark force and will always be remembered as such
- carlob 8y ago
  Disclaimer: Stephen Wolfram pays my rent. The times have changed a lot since Matthew Cook, now a lot of my meetings with him are simultaneously live-streamed on several different platforms and the recordings are available for anyone to use. If anyone were to say all the ideas on the particular piece of Wolfram Language I'm working on are all Wolfram's I'd have hours of video recordings to show. I haven't tested my theory yet, but I think the day I decide to switch jobs those might prove useful.
  - nels0n 8y ago
    U r just a puppet implementing ideas from higher ups within the wolfram clan not him. As if u know how the times were when Matthew cook was still w the company. Come on puppet , grow up
yesenadam 8y ago
Sage is free. William Stein deserves a huge amount of credit. Some of the huge amount of functionality stuffed into Sage: http://doc.sagemath.org/html/en/installation/standard_packages.html http://doc.sagemath.org/html/en/installation/standard_packag...
- hjk05 8y ago
  Mathematica never hade widespread appeal because it wasn’t even close to being affordable. Sage never had widespread appeal because it wasn’t even close to being Mathematica.
ken 8y ago
It was free with every NeXT workstation! This right here, I believe, is the biggest problem facing software today. How do you pay for it? End-users expect software to cost $0, yet it takes a lot of time and effort to build anything. The most successful software projects and companies I see today are those which figured out innovative business models: advertising, hardware, free for open source / paid for business, make it all open source and get a job maintaining it. There's no one correct answer. For any business model you pick for your software today, half the world will be upset with you. I wish Mathematica was more affordable, but I can't fault someone for creating a sustainable business. As Joel Spolsky said, good software takes 10 years (at least!), and most software dies long before it gets 10 years of development, so we never even get the chance to see if it could have been good.
- erikpukinskis 8y ago
  > This right here, I believe, is the biggest problem facing software today. How do you pay for it? You find the people who are making money with it, find conveniences that those people would appreciate, and put them behind a paywall. Or, with the same group of people, offer them a support contract. Sell them the “premium” version of the software with 24-7 support and contractors who can solve any problem they might come across. Or, host the software as a service and let people pay for that. Or, host the software as a feee service and use your users’ data to market products at them. Or, use the software to solve a social or governmental problem, apply for grants to do more of that, and use some of the grant money to improve the software. Or you can always sell virtual hats. There are lots of ways to do it.
- sytelus 8y ago
  Business models are the most significant innovations for any business. Google or Maps or Gmail is jaw-droppingly expensive software but its sustainably free. There might be way for software like Mathematica. For example, having marketplace that sells professional plugins like aerodynamics simulation for aircrafts or autonomous trading library etc. You can also have special classroom edition that charges nominal amounts or the enterprise edition that has cloud and IT support. The large chunk of platform can potentially be free and open source.
raphar 8y ago
Will his company survive when he's not around anymore? (I don't think so) I think the chance for him to be that hero, is to opensource everything, and then lead that project (linus way) or retire.....

nels0n 8y ago

You must be a fool. The amount of material this guy relies on is the work of his subordinates. Matthew Cook, etc ... he would never be considered anything like a hero in the eyes of a true nerd. He is stands for the dark force and will always be remembered as such

carlob 8y ago
Disclaimer: Stephen Wolfram pays my rent. The times have changed a lot since Matthew Cook, now a lot of my meetings with him are simultaneously live-streamed on several different platforms and the recordings are available for anyone to use. If anyone were to say all the ideas on the particular piece of Wolfram Language I'm working on are all Wolfram's I'd have hours of video recordings to show. I haven't tested my theory yet, but I think the day I decide to switch jobs those might prove useful.
- nels0n 8y ago
  U r just a puppet implementing ideas from higher ups within the wolfram clan not him. As if u know how the times were when Matthew cook was still w the company. Come on puppet , grow up

yesenadam 8y ago

Sage is free. William Stein deserves a huge amount of credit. Some of the huge amount of functionality stuffed into Sage: http://doc.sagemath.org/html/en/installation/standard_packages.html http://doc.sagemath.org/html/en/installation/standard_packag...

hjk05 8y ago
Mathematica never hade widespread appeal because it wasn’t even close to being affordable. Sage never had widespread appeal because it wasn’t even close to being Mathematica.

ken 8y ago

It was free with every NeXT workstation! This right here, I believe, is the biggest problem facing software today. How do you pay for it? End-users expect software to cost $0, yet it takes a lot of time and effort to build anything. The most successful software projects and companies I see today are those which figured out innovative business models: advertising, hardware, free for open source / paid for business, make it all open source and get a job maintaining it. There's no one correct answer. For any business model you pick for your software today, half the world will be upset with you. I wish Mathematica was more affordable, but I can't fault someone for creating a sustainable business. As Joel Spolsky said, good software takes 10 years (at least!), and most software dies long before it gets 10 years of development, so we never even get the chance to see if it could have been good.

erikpukinskis 8y ago
> This right here, I believe, is the biggest problem facing software today. How do you pay for it? You find the people who are making money with it, find conveniences that those people would appreciate, and put them behind a paywall. Or, with the same group of people, offer them a support contract. Sell them the “premium” version of the software with 24-7 support and contractors who can solve any problem they might come across. Or, host the software as a service and let people pay for that. Or, host the software as a feee service and use your users’ data to market products at them. Or, use the software to solve a social or governmental problem, apply for grants to do more of that, and use some of the grant money to improve the software. Or you can always sell virtual hats. There are lots of ways to do it.
sytelus 8y ago
Business models are the most significant innovations for any business. Google or Maps or Gmail is jaw-droppingly expensive software but its sustainably free. There might be way for software like Mathematica. For example, having marketplace that sells professional plugins like aerodynamics simulation for aircrafts or autonomous trading library etc. You can also have special classroom edition that charges nominal amounts or the enterprise edition that has cloud and IT support. The large chunk of platform can potentially be free and open source.

raphar 8y ago

Will his company survive when he's not around anymore? (I don't think so) I think the chance for him to be that hero, is to opensource everything, and then lead that project (linus way) or retire.....