jlg@lanl-a.UUCP (09/27/84)
> Are there any public domain symbolic mathematics packages out there? > Symbolics' price of $15K seems a bit steep for Macsyma. Are there any > free packages or reasonably priced packages around? $15K seems especially out of line when you remember that Symbolics didn't even write the code! The VAX version was written and maintained at Berkeley. MACSYMA was designed and developed at MIT (much of it was government funded through DOE and others). Most of the coding for MACSYMA was done by graduate students, DOE scientists, and faculty; few of whom benefit from the sale of the code. In fact, the only version which Symbolics wrote was the one which runs on their Lisp Machine. I don't blame Symbolics for this mess. I would probably sell MACSYMA for $15k myself, if someone declared me to be the authorized vendor. This was in litigation for some time and there was a strong case for declaring the code to be public domain. In fact, before Symbolics was licensed as vendor, the VAX version of the code was available from Berkeley (for government and educational institutions only) for a tape copy fee ($200 or $500 I think). Berkeley favored the position that the code should be public domain. Too bad they didn't prevail. Also, $15k is the price per machine - no site wide licenses are available from Symbolics. However, substantial discounts are available for educational institutions (still for individual machines only). Symbolics charges an additional fee for a maintenance contract (one year). MACSYMA and Symbolics are trademarks of Symbolics inc. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- James Giles jlg@lanl-a ...!inhp4!cmcl2!lanl-a!jlg