Why Wolfram Tech Isn’t Open Source—A Dozen Reasons
Why Wolfram Tech Isn’t Open Source—A Dozen Reasons
Jon McLoone, Director, Technical Communication & Strategy
Over the years, I have been asked many times about my opinions on free and open-source software. Sometimes the questions are driven by comparison to some promising or newly fashionable open-source project, sometimes by comparison to a stagnating open-source project and sometimes by the belief that Wolfram technology would be better if it were open source.
At the risk of provoking the fundamentalist end of the open-source community, I thought I would share some of my views in this blog. While there are counterexamples to most of what I have to say and I am somewhat glossing over the different kinds of “free,” I hope I have crystalized some essential truths.
How not being open source makes the Wolfram Language possible
Much of this blog could be summed up with two answers: (1) free, open-source software can be very good, but it isn’t good at doing what we are trying to do; with a large fraction of the reason being (2) open source distributes design over small, self-assembling groups who individually tackle parts of an overall task, but large-scale, unified design needs centralized control and sustained effort.
I came up with 12 reasons why I think that it would not have been possible to create the Wolfram technology stack using a free and open-source model. I would be interested to hear your views in the comments section below the blog.
Over the years, I have been asked many times about my opinions on free and open-source software. Sometimes the questions are driven by comparison to some promising or newly fashionable open-source project, sometimes by comparison to a stagnating open-source project and sometimes by the belief that Wolfram technology would be better if it were open source.
At the risk of provoking the fundamentalist end of the open-source community, I thought I would share some of my views in this blog. While there are counterexamples to most of what I have to say and I am somewhat glossing over the different kinds of “free,” I hope I have crystalized some essential truths.
How not being open source makes the Wolfram Language possible
Much of this blog could be summed up with two answers: (1) free, open-source software can be very good, but it isn’t good at doing what we are trying to do; with a large fraction of the reason being (2) open source distributes design over small, self-assembling groups who individually tackle parts of an overall task, but large-scale, unified design needs centralized control and sustained effort.
I came up with 12 reasons why I think that it would not have been possible to create the Wolfram technology stack using a free and open-source model. I would be interested to hear your views in the comments section below the blog.
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A coherent vision requires centralized design
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High-level languages need more design than low-level languages
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You need multidisciplinary teams to unify disparate fields
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Hard cases and boring stuff need to get done too
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Crowd-sourced decisions can be bad for you
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Our developers work for you, not just themselves
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Unified computation requires unified design
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Unified representation requires unified design
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Open source doesn't bring major tech innovation to market »
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Paid software offers an open quid pro quo
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It takes steady income to sustain long-term R&D
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Bad design is expensive
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