Subject: Proposal for outside funds for maxima development
From: Seth Goldberg
Date: Sat, 16 Dec 2006 07:43:42 -0800 (PST)
What is the chance that we could convince Google [or anyone else]
to buy out, or
provide matching funds for a buy out of commercial Macsyma for release
under the GPL and eventual incorporation into ...
This sounds highly possible if slightly broadened. I add the suggestion that Negroponte's group could well be off assistance here, as funding specialists.
In addition to accessable hardware, there is obviously also a wordwide effort to provide accessable software. GNU/Linux has succeeded, but the rest of the educational software is pretty much disorganized.
Wikiuniversity and Wiki[text]books is important here.
This is a very fertile field for funding.
As to Maxima, (and Macsyma), one way of "doing the right thing" might be for MIT to lend its name to an effort to raise the money to put Macsyma in the public domain, where it obviously belongs.
The larger issue of perfecting the FSF/GNU/free software for the worldwide student community, in particular providing a stable platform for mathematics education is very timely now.
I am also thinking of examples such as those automatically generated at calc101, as very helpful.
It would be nice to also do something like that, but at several levels, including junior high school and high school.
Seth Goldberg
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