Hello,
It has been pointed out that the price of commercial
algebra systems, while apparently steep, may not be
a sticking point for people who will use the system
as their primary tool. In this case, a $0 price tag
is not much of a point in favor of Maxima.
>From Maxima's point of view, it might be better to
emphasize the price to incidental or occasional
users. I have Maxima on my Linux box, and I also
have several other GPL'd systems which have
commercial near-equivalents -- R, Octave, Linux
itself, etc etc. For any one of these packages,
the price might not be a crucial factor. But it
is certainly true that I would probably have a
much narrower selection of software available if
it were all commercial.
The "free beer & free speech" aspect of Maxima
is probably more persuasive to people, like me,
who are accustomed to using a large collection
of software as a toolbox to achieve some goal
not directly addressed by any single piece.
best,
Robert Dodier
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