8 ms·

Why the Wolfram Language Is (Like) Open Source

32 points by tableofzero 5y ago

2Gkashmiri 5y ago
bollocks. this is what "open souce" and real foss software differ, no bullshit promises and no sweet talk of oh well look but dont touch.
undoware 5y ago
Thanks Wolfram, but I like my freedoms uncurated.
Qem 5y ago
Didn't convince me. No, it's not. You can pry SymPy and SageMath from my cold, dead hands.
yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago
Reason's it's "like" FOSS: > You can use it for free ...Within certain restrictions. Also, lots of proprietary stuff is available for free or close enough. > You can view the source code There's actually sort of fair, although it only extends to the functions in the language; "Older or core functions written in C are not viewable this way", and I doubt this extends to the underlying engine. > You can modify it Again, provided you stay in the "userspace" parts and don't want to share your changes. > You can contribute ... stuff that you built in Wolfram, but "we don’t really believe in user contributions to the core language". > There is a supportive (and supported) community https://community.oracle.com/hub/ https://community.oracle.com/hub/ https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/home https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/home Forgive me if I fail to be impressed. > There is active development Until there isn't, at which point the single point of failure suddenly does matter. Also, not much of a standard; IBM still develops Db2, y'know.
- hdjjhhvvhga 5y ago
  > IBM still develops Db2, y'know. Because this development is sponsored by old customers; I haven't heard about anyone choosing DB2 for a new project.
  - yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago
    Sure? Is Wolfram going to be developed if there's no money in it? (I mean, maybe, purely as a point of pride for Wolfram the man, but I certainly wouldn't depend on it)
gtirloni 5y ago
I'm having a hard time understanding why such posts. You won't change the open source advocate's minds and all others don't care. I guess they value open discussion, which is good.
- jimhefferon 5y ago
  Perhaps they do, and that is good. I found the editorial from the American Math Society at https://www.ams.org/notices/200710/tx071001279p.pdf https://www.ams.org/notices/200710/tx071001279p.pdf to have been a persuasive contribution to that open discussion. (FYI, one author has spent years building SageMath.)
  - williamstein 5y ago
    I'm one of the authors that spent years building SageMath; indeed, the goal of our project is to create a viable free open source alternative to Mathematica (etc.). There's an interesting discussion of actual attempts to create open source implementations of the Wolfram Language in Wikipedia under "Implementations" (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfram_Language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfram_Language). The first attempt was 30 years ago by Fateman and he received an official cease-and-desist from Wolfram for his attempts; he did a lot of work on open source Maxima as a result. I think right now https://mathics.org/ https://mathics.org/ is the most complete open source Wolfram Language implementation, and it uses Sympy extensively under the hood. Mathics was dead for a while when the main author got hired by Wolfram (see https://github.com/mathics/Mathics/graphs/contributors https://github.com/mathics/Mathics/graphs/contributors), but during the last year there has been an enormous amount of new work on Mathics.
sebow 5y ago
"So it’s not the “free to do anything” of open-source software, but it is free in many cases." Pretty much all there is to say.I don't want to bash mathematica/wolfram language because i actually like them to a degree, and i also agree with the fact that you don't let everyone design your language.However,that degree is having an account to make in order to use certain things, even free, and other things that make it harder for hobbyists/students to use.Again, this is not even in antithesis with the "we have a business model suited for enterprises", which can definitely remain even if you were to further open the language, or make the tools free to download, without an account that asks for your address, phone number, etc. Stephen has done truly something great with this project,and it shows, but let's not pretend this is not an attempt at trying to gain back some of the people who look at other popular solutions(like jupyter notebooks, and the dozen of other solutions derived from it) and say: this is more convenient for me. Open source has become quite literally like some copyrighted posters exposed in the public space.
sam0x17 5y ago
It's really a shame the wolfram language _isn't_ truly open source. It was my first introduction to a computer algebra system in college and I was able to do a lot of powerful stuff with it, all useless now since it's behind a paywall and all the things I would use it for are personal and/or open search-style research where I want other people to be able to use it.
Aardwolf 5y ago
Isn't it only possible to install as a binary blob, so not open source? Nothing against the engine itself by the way, which is awesome.
- GhettoComputers 5y ago
  Linux has blobs, is it not open source?
  - 0xCMP 5y ago
    the blobs certainly aren't. but thats just certain drivers. everything else is.
    - yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago
      Not even drivers, AFAIK; it's firmware blobs that have to be loaded to the device in order for it to run, but nothing on the actual "host" computer side. So like, if you have a wifi card with blobs, you have to hand it a firmware blob to "boot" the card, but once it's up you can talk to it using a fully GPLv2 driver in Linux (which talks to the proprietary wireless firmware over PCIe or whatever).
  - tombert 5y ago
    There are plenty of distros of Linux that have fully removed binary blobs [1]. As far as I am aware, it wouldn't be allowed to fork Mathematica and remove all proprietary blobs. [1] https://www.gnu.org/distros/free-distros.en.html https://www.gnu.org/distros/free-distros.en.html
    - GhettoComputers 5y ago
      Realistically though nobody uses those, and every project like that such as BSD gets used as a base for proprietary software. Do they even support TRIM?
      - 5y ago
poulpy123 5y ago
Soon the book "A New Kind of Open Source" by Stephen Wolfram
- tombert 5y ago
  Tangential, but I read A New Kind of Science a few years ago. The topic is very interesting, and the cellular automata stuff seems pretty cool, but the first chapter for it is borderline hilarious. It spends pretty much the entire time telling you how revolutionary the book is, acting like no one has ever been this clever in their entire lives.
  - Banana699 5y ago
    Wolfram's arrogance is really a kind of meme at this point, a new kind of meme if you will.
    - tombert 5y ago
      I find it kind of weird. Didn't Wolfram get a doctorate at like age 19? And have a successful company pretty shortly afterwards? Why does he act so insecure and feel the need to brag about himself all the time...what could he possibly even be insecure about?
      - headhasthoughts 5y ago
        Why do you need to be insecure to brag? If you're awesome, and you're aware of the fact, which you presumably are if you're genuinely as intelligent as you think you are, why not have fun with it? I'm not in the camp that thinks Wolfram deserves his success, but if I did think he did, I'd celebrate his bragging. As it is, though, I find the Wolfram's Wolfram Wolfram less than appealing.
      - orwin 5y ago
        It feel like he is playing a character in public spaces. And while i'm sure arrogance is a part of his person (and for once its warranted), his attitude feel like a persona. I find it likeable to be honest, like a friend who brag often and fell flat each time, so it is clearly working.
TremendousJudge 5y ago
Free as in beer, maybe. Not free as in speech. I cannot fork the language and use it however I please. Maybe Stephen Wolfram has the best intentions, but he won't live forever. What then? What are the guarantees that Oracle won't buy it and screw over the users?
- znpy 5y ago
  > Free as in beer, maybe. Not free as in speech. That is true, but the choice of words is correct: Open Source software is not necessarily Free Software.
colonwqbang 5y ago
"It's open source, except that the source isn't open."
rsstack 5y ago
Wolfram language is basically as open source as Mongo or Elastic. Which is to say, the source is open and they want the clout of being open source, but it isn't open source.
- yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago
  Less, I think; last I looked, Mongo and Elastic were actually publishing all the source code for the core of the application, albeit under questionable licenses, where Wolfram (in spite of the article's attempt at misdirection) lets you see the scripting language on top of the (C?) core code, which is totally unavailable.
zorked 5y ago
Mathematica is really good. If it were Open Source it might have a chance at competing with Jupyter and Python. As it isn't, nobody is going to build businesses around it and the community will be limited. If they are right, it may make Wolfram more money, but it certainly makes Mathematica less successful.
- tombert 5y ago
  I haven't done a ton with Mathematica, but my understanding is that it allows for more powerful and abstract programming than something like Jupyter. Am I wrong? I would think that Wolfram isn't trying to compete in the data science space, but more in the more abstract academic space.
  - Jeff_Brown 5y ago
    I used it more than a decade ago, as a grad student. It was magic with symbolic algebra. It was also a solid general purpose language, great for audio and graphics (although probably not realtime). But the set of libraries for it will never compete with those of an open language.
    - lokedhs 5y ago
      There are open source alternatives. The one I'm somewhat involved in is Maxima which is one of the oldest open source projects that is still being developed. wxMaxima is the most popular frontend for the software: http://wxmaxima-developers.github.io/wxmaxima/ http://wxmaxima-developers.github.io/wxmaxima/ I'm also taking the opportunity include a video that I made using to demonstrate my UI for it: https://peertube.functional.cafe/w/qnx1onPEx9LCtDP3wFqjWz https://peertube.functional.cafe/w/qnx1onPEx9LCtDP3wFqjWz
      - zorked 5y ago
        Maxima is a treasure! And yes, I think it is lacking a better UI (wxMaxima works but needs more polish I think) and particularly more appealing documentation. Your video is very interesting!
m4r35n357 5y ago
Until he cashes out
Brian_K_White 5y ago
"How can I tap in to that virtuous do gooder cache from open source software without giving up the cash from proprietary software?"
daly 5y ago
The current average company lifespan is 21 years (https://www.statista.com/statistics/1259275/average-company-lifespan/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1259275/average-company-...). It has slowly decreased over time. Given that Wolfram Research is tightly held, what happens when the company ends? Does it "punch a hole" in computational mathematics? Does all of your code stop working? This isn't idle speculation. I used to use a Symbolics machine. Symbolics Inc. failed. The Symbolics software still exists but you can only buy a copy that runs on DOS. I used Common Lisp on Symbolics. Common Lisp is a standard. There are open source implementations so all of my code survived. Will your code survive when Wolfram Research dies? (Full Disclosure, I'm the lead developer on open source Axiom)

32 points by tableofzero 5y ago

bollocks. this is what "open souce" and real foss software differ, no bullshit promises and no sweet talk of oh well look but dont touch.

undoware 5y ago

Thanks Wolfram, but I like my freedoms uncurated.

Qem 5y ago

Didn't convince me. No, it's not. You can pry SymPy and SageMath from my cold, dead hands.

yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago

Reason's it's "like" FOSS: > You can use it for free ...Within certain restrictions. Also, lots of proprietary stuff is available for free or close enough. > You can view the source code There's actually sort of fair, although it only extends to the functions in the language; "Older or core functions written in C are not viewable this way", and I doubt this extends to the underlying engine. > You can modify it Again, provided you stay in the "userspace" parts and don't want to share your changes. > You can contribute ... stuff that you built in Wolfram, but "we don’t really believe in user contributions to the core language". > There is a supportive (and supported) community https://community.oracle.com/hub/ https://community.oracle.com/hub/ https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/home https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/home Forgive me if I fail to be impressed. > There is active development Until there isn't, at which point the single point of failure suddenly does matter. Also, not much of a standard; IBM still develops Db2, y'know.

hdjjhhvvhga 5y ago
> IBM still develops Db2, y'know. Because this development is sponsored by old customers; I haven't heard about anyone choosing DB2 for a new project.
- yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago
  Sure? Is Wolfram going to be developed if there's no money in it? (I mean, maybe, purely as a point of pride for Wolfram the man, but I certainly wouldn't depend on it)

gtirloni 5y ago

I'm having a hard time understanding why such posts. You won't change the open source advocate's minds and all others don't care. I guess they value open discussion, which is good.

jimhefferon 5y ago
Perhaps they do, and that is good. I found the editorial from the American Math Society at https://www.ams.org/notices/200710/tx071001279p.pdf https://www.ams.org/notices/200710/tx071001279p.pdf to have been a persuasive contribution to that open discussion. (FYI, one author has spent years building SageMath.)
- williamstein 5y ago
  I'm one of the authors that spent years building SageMath; indeed, the goal of our project is to create a viable free open source alternative to Mathematica (etc.). There's an interesting discussion of actual attempts to create open source implementations of the Wolfram Language in Wikipedia under "Implementations" (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfram_Language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfram_Language). The first attempt was 30 years ago by Fateman and he received an official cease-and-desist from Wolfram for his attempts; he did a lot of work on open source Maxima as a result. I think right now https://mathics.org/ https://mathics.org/ is the most complete open source Wolfram Language implementation, and it uses Sympy extensively under the hood. Mathics was dead for a while when the main author got hired by Wolfram (see https://github.com/mathics/Mathics/graphs/contributors https://github.com/mathics/Mathics/graphs/contributors), but during the last year there has been an enormous amount of new work on Mathics.

sebow 5y ago

"So it’s not the “free to do anything” of open-source software, but it is free in many cases." Pretty much all there is to say.I don't want to bash mathematica/wolfram language because i actually like them to a degree, and i also agree with the fact that you don't let everyone design your language.However,that degree is having an account to make in order to use certain things, even free, and other things that make it harder for hobbyists/students to use.Again, this is not even in antithesis with the "we have a business model suited for enterprises", which can definitely remain even if you were to further open the language, or make the tools free to download, without an account that asks for your address, phone number, etc. Stephen has done truly something great with this project,and it shows, but let's not pretend this is not an attempt at trying to gain back some of the people who look at other popular solutions(like jupyter notebooks, and the dozen of other solutions derived from it) and say: this is more convenient for me. Open source has become quite literally like some copyrighted posters exposed in the public space.

sam0x17 5y ago

It's really a shame the wolfram language _isn't_ truly open source. It was my first introduction to a computer algebra system in college and I was able to do a lot of powerful stuff with it, all useless now since it's behind a paywall and all the things I would use it for are personal and/or open search-style research where I want other people to be able to use it.

Aardwolf 5y ago

Isn't it only possible to install as a binary blob, so not open source? Nothing against the engine itself by the way, which is awesome.

GhettoComputers 5y ago
Linux has blobs, is it not open source?
- 0xCMP 5y ago
  the blobs certainly aren't. but thats just certain drivers. everything else is.
  - yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago
    Not even drivers, AFAIK; it's firmware blobs that have to be loaded to the device in order for it to run, but nothing on the actual "host" computer side. So like, if you have a wifi card with blobs, you have to hand it a firmware blob to "boot" the card, but once it's up you can talk to it using a fully GPLv2 driver in Linux (which talks to the proprietary wireless firmware over PCIe or whatever).
- tombert 5y ago
  There are plenty of distros of Linux that have fully removed binary blobs [1]. As far as I am aware, it wouldn't be allowed to fork Mathematica and remove all proprietary blobs. [1] https://www.gnu.org/distros/free-distros.en.html https://www.gnu.org/distros/free-distros.en.html
  - GhettoComputers 5y ago
    Realistically though nobody uses those, and every project like that such as BSD gets used as a base for proprietary software. Do they even support TRIM?
    - 5y ago

poulpy123 5y ago

Soon the book "A New Kind of Open Source" by Stephen Wolfram

tombert 5y ago
Tangential, but I read A New Kind of Science a few years ago. The topic is very interesting, and the cellular automata stuff seems pretty cool, but the first chapter for it is borderline hilarious. It spends pretty much the entire time telling you how revolutionary the book is, acting like no one has ever been this clever in their entire lives.
- Banana699 5y ago
  Wolfram's arrogance is really a kind of meme at this point, a new kind of meme if you will.
  - tombert 5y ago
    I find it kind of weird. Didn't Wolfram get a doctorate at like age 19? And have a successful company pretty shortly afterwards? Why does he act so insecure and feel the need to brag about himself all the time...what could he possibly even be insecure about?
    - headhasthoughts 5y ago
      Why do you need to be insecure to brag? If you're awesome, and you're aware of the fact, which you presumably are if you're genuinely as intelligent as you think you are, why not have fun with it? I'm not in the camp that thinks Wolfram deserves his success, but if I did think he did, I'd celebrate his bragging. As it is, though, I find the Wolfram's Wolfram Wolfram less than appealing.
    - orwin 5y ago
      It feel like he is playing a character in public spaces. And while i'm sure arrogance is a part of his person (and for once its warranted), his attitude feel like a persona. I find it likeable to be honest, like a friend who brag often and fell flat each time, so it is clearly working.

TremendousJudge 5y ago

Free as in beer, maybe. Not free as in speech. I cannot fork the language and use it however I please. Maybe Stephen Wolfram has the best intentions, but he won't live forever. What then? What are the guarantees that Oracle won't buy it and screw over the users?

znpy 5y ago
> Free as in beer, maybe. Not free as in speech. That is true, but the choice of words is correct: Open Source software is not necessarily Free Software.

colonwqbang 5y ago

"It's open source, except that the source isn't open."

rsstack 5y ago

Wolfram language is basically as open source as Mongo or Elastic. Which is to say, the source is open and they want the clout of being open source, but it isn't open source.

yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago
Less, I think; last I looked, Mongo and Elastic were actually publishing all the source code for the core of the application, albeit under questionable licenses, where Wolfram (in spite of the article's attempt at misdirection) lets you see the scripting language on top of the (C?) core code, which is totally unavailable.

zorked 5y ago

Mathematica is really good. If it were Open Source it might have a chance at competing with Jupyter and Python. As it isn't, nobody is going to build businesses around it and the community will be limited. If they are right, it may make Wolfram more money, but it certainly makes Mathematica less successful.

tombert 5y ago
I haven't done a ton with Mathematica, but my understanding is that it allows for more powerful and abstract programming than something like Jupyter. Am I wrong? I would think that Wolfram isn't trying to compete in the data science space, but more in the more abstract academic space.
- Jeff_Brown 5y ago
  I used it more than a decade ago, as a grad student. It was magic with symbolic algebra. It was also a solid general purpose language, great for audio and graphics (although probably not realtime). But the set of libraries for it will never compete with those of an open language.
  - lokedhs 5y ago
    There are open source alternatives. The one I'm somewhat involved in is Maxima which is one of the oldest open source projects that is still being developed. wxMaxima is the most popular frontend for the software: http://wxmaxima-developers.github.io/wxmaxima/ http://wxmaxima-developers.github.io/wxmaxima/ I'm also taking the opportunity include a video that I made using to demonstrate my UI for it: https://peertube.functional.cafe/w/qnx1onPEx9LCtDP3wFqjWz https://peertube.functional.cafe/w/qnx1onPEx9LCtDP3wFqjWz
    - zorked 5y ago
      Maxima is a treasure! And yes, I think it is lacking a better UI (wxMaxima works but needs more polish I think) and particularly more appealing documentation. Your video is very interesting!

m4r35n357 5y ago

Until he cashes out

Brian_K_White 5y ago

"How can I tap in to that virtuous do gooder cache from open source software without giving up the cash from proprietary software?"

daly 5y ago

The current average company lifespan is 21 years (https://www.statista.com/statistics/1259275/average-company-lifespan/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1259275/average-company-...). It has slowly decreased over time. Given that Wolfram Research is tightly held, what happens when the company ends? Does it "punch a hole" in computational mathematics? Does all of your code stop working? This isn't idle speculation. I used to use a Symbolics machine. Symbolics Inc. failed. The Symbolics software still exists but you can only buy a copy that runs on DOS. I used Common Lisp on Symbolics. Common Lisp is a standard. There are open source implementations so all of my code survived. Will your code survive when Wolfram Research dies? (Full Disclosure, I'm the lead developer on open source Axiom)