I just received an email from a postdoc in Europe, and very longtime contributor to the Sage project. He's asking for a letter of recommendation, since he has to leave the world of mathematical software development (after a decade of training and experience), so that he can take a job at hedge fund. He ends his request with the question:
> P.S. You don't _really_ think that Sage has failed, do you?
After almost exactly 10 years of working on the Sage project, I absolutely do think it has failed to accomplish the stated goal of the mission statement: "Create a viable free open source alternative to Magma, Maple, Mathematica and Matlab.". When it was only a few years into the project, it was really hard to evaluate progress against such a lofty mission statement. However, after 10 years, it's clear to me that not only have we not got there, we are not going to ever get there before I retire. And that's definitely a failure.
After almost exactly 10 years of working on the Sage project, I absolutely do think it has failed to accomplish the stated goal of the mission statement: "Create a viable free open source alternative to Magma, Maple, Mathematica and Matlab.". When it was only a few years into the project, it was really hard to evaluate progress against such a lofty mission statement. However, after 10 years, it's clear to me that not only have we not got there, we are not going to ever get there before I retire. And that's definitely a failure.
Here's a very rough quote I overheard at lunch today at Sage Days 61, from John Voight, who wrote much quaternion algebra code in Magma: "I'm making a list of what is missing from Sage that Magma has for working with quaternion algebras. However, it's so incredibly daunting, that I don't want to put in everything. I've been working on Magma's quaternion algebras for over 10 years, as have several other people. It's truly daunting how much functionality Magma has compared to Sage."
The only possible way Sage will not fail at the stated mission is if I can get several million dollars a year in money to support developers to work fulltime on implementing interesting core mathematical algorithms. This is something that Magma has had for over 20 years, and that Maple, Matlab, and Mathematica also have. That I don't have such funding is probably why you are about to take a job at a hedge fund. If I had the money, I would try to hire a few of the absolute best people (rather than a bunch of amateurs), people like you, Robert Bradshaw, etc. -- we know who is good. (And clearly I mean serious salaries, not grad student wages!)
So yes, I think the current approach to Sage has failed. I am going to try another approach, namely SageMathCloud. If it works, maybe the world will get a free open source alternative to Magma, Mathematica, etc. Otherwise, maybe the world never ever will. If you care like I do about having such a thing, and you're teaching course, or whatever, maybe try using SageMathCloud. If enough people use SageMathCloud for college teaching, then maybe a business model will emerge, and Sage will get proper funding.
