Sage Does the Maths of Free Software

One of the persistent myths about free software is that successes like Linux are one-offs, and that the open source methodology can't be applied easily to tackle complex software challenges. In the early days of free software, the relative paucity of end-user apps was trotted out as proof of this idea - The GIMP stood in splendid isolation back then.

Things have change, though; today, there is a wide range of high-quality open source apps, and the list keeps on growing. Here's there latest, and it's a biggie:

Until recently, a student solving a calculus problem, a physicist modeling a galaxy or a mathematician studying a complex equation had to use powerful computer programs that cost hundreds or thousands of dollars. But an open-source tool based at the University of Washington won first prize in the scientific software division of Les Trophées du Libre, an international competition for free software.

The tool, called Sage, faced initial skepticism from the mathematics and education communities.

"I've had a surprisingly large number of people tell me that something like Sage couldn't be done -- that it just wasn't possible," said William Stein, associate professor of mathematics and lead developer of the tool. "I'm hearing that less now."

Open-source software, which distributes programs and all their underlying code for free, is increasingly used in everyday applications. Firefox, Linux and Open Office are well-known examples.

But until recently, nobody had done the same for the everyday tools used in mathematics. Over the past three years, more than a hundred mathematicians from around the world have worked with Stein to build a user-friendly tool that combines powerful number-crunching with new features, such as collaborative online worksheets.

"A lot of people said: 'Wow, I've been waiting forever for something like this,'" Stein said. "People are excited about it."

Sage can take the place of commercial software commonly used in mathematics education, in large government laboratories and in math-intensive research. The program can do anything from mapping a 12-dimensional object to calculating rainfall patterns under global warming.

The benefits of using free software for maths extend far beyond the usual ones:

The frustrations weren't only financial. Commercial programs don't always reveal how the calculations are performed. This means that other mathematicians can't scrutinize the code to see how a computer-based calculation arrived at a result.

"Not being able to check the code of a computer-based calculation is like not publishing proofs for a mathematical theorem," Stein said. "It's ludicrous."

(Via A Blog Around the Clock.)