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Re: Literate Programming, Axiom, and Physically Based Rendering


From: Tim Daly
Subject: Re: Literate Programming, Axiom, and Physically Based Rendering
Date: Sun, 2 Apr 2023 05:34:49 -0400

> Moving forward with Axiom is going to be hard, and will probably have
> to require some new people to get involved.  That is best served with
> financial or other incentives, but I have no suggestions on how to
> achieve that goal.

I have contacted about a dozen companies for grant money.

I have contacted several grant-generating organizations.

I set up a "contribute to Axiom" account of which I was the only contributor.

I have contacted NSF and DARPA.

The only support Axiom had was from Gilbert Baumslag at City College
of New York. I worked with Gilbert in his Infinite Theory Group at CAISS.
He supported the initial effort to make Axiom run standalone (the NAG
version required a running Axiom to create a new Axiom).

One of the key issues is managing the funding. That requires someone
to hold the funds, manage the receipts, and pay the taxes. That is, it
requires an independent accountant. NSF and DARPA usually give funds
to a University office to manage. No accountants, no grant money.

I contacted several companies asking them to set up a small 1 or 2 person
accounting shop for open source projects to accept and manage grants.

So over the last 20 years no attempt at funding succeeded.

Over those 20 years I averaged about $3000 per year of Axiom related
costs such as equipment, online hosting, travel for presentations, and
Axiom-related swag (e.g. coffee mugs), all out of personal funds. That
figure does not include my time.

Tim


On Sun, Apr 2, 2023 at 2:49 AM Johann 'Myrkraverk' Oskarsson <johann@myrkraverk.com> wrote:
Dear Tim,

On Sat, Apr 1, 2023 at 10:22 AM Tim Daly <axiomcas@gmail.com> wrote:
[...]
> I had hoped that Axiom could have been reborn as a literate program.
> The idea was to "make it live beyond the authors". Each algorithm
> would provide an explanation, various literature references, and some
> examples as well as limitations. That way a person with no background
> knowledge in computer algebra could learn and contribute. Such a
> literate program would have set the standard for mathematical software.
>
> Sadly that's not going to happen.

My personal involvement with Axiom is probably limited to buying a
manual ages ago.

I recently learned that the LibTomMath book had been removed from the
source repository on GitHub. [1]

/Nothing lasts forever/.

Like Axiom, LibTomMath was a project aimed at teaching people how to
implement multiprecision arithmetic.

Now, that aspect of it has been removed, apparently since Tom himself
is no longer involved.

Moving forward with Axiom is going to be hard, and will probably have
to require some new people to get involved.  That is best served with
financial or other incentives, but I have no suggestions on how to
achieve that goal.

Selling physical copies of [incomplete] Axiom internals might help,
and there are other options such as Patreon.

Good luck, and please don't give up -- even if you take a year or two
off for other things.

[1] The PDF can still be found in the older releases on the same
GitHub, but no new editions will be made there.


--
Johann

 I'm not from the internet, I just work there.

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