Be prepared to have Stephen Wolfram pull all the stops in order to destroy your project. He didn't get rich by letting free competition flourish you know.
EDIT: I downloaded the source just in case the author receives an offer he can't refuse.
EDIT: I downloaded the source just in case the author receives an offer he can't refuse.
2. The originator of this (Jan Poetschko) has worked at Wolfram for several years now
3. I think at least a number of people at Wolfram understand that Octave has been an asset (or gateway drug if you prefer) for Matlab, rather than a threat
Usually companies are intelligent enough to use tactics that has the greatest likelihood of success: mafioso tactics. The developer won't, in all likelihood receive a lawsuit. He'll be given an offer he can't refuse.
It's a good thing they didn't pull the plug on the github page. Now it's possible for someone to carry the torch.
The lead developer up until 2 years ago, Angus Griffith's LinkedIn says he's at Google. [0]
In April 2016, Angus replied to a comment of mine "Mathics is still maintained. There are currently two of us working on it. The last release was v0.9 in March this year." [1].
The original creator Jan Pöschko's GitHub profile states "JavaScripter making the notebook interface of wolframcloud.com" [2]. His bulk contributions to Mathics stopped in 2012, but he still makes sporadic contributions to Mathics - see here he merged a pull request March 2019 [3] - suggests Wolfram tolerate the existence of Mathics because it's not a serious threat.
As the creator of Sage, what's your opinion of the legal risks of creating a Mathematica syntax compatible clone like Mathics in the light of Wolfram Research's fairly aggressive assertion of its IP "rights"?
[0] https://www.linkedin.com/in/angus-griffith-093433b0/
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11465064
[2] https://github.com/poeschko
[3] https://github.com/mathics/Mathics/commits?author=poeschko&s...
What I'm saying is that a syntax compatible Mathematica clone, with all the other stuff too, ever took off, then Wolfram Research's playbook would be:
1. try and hire the lead developers.
2. if that failed, call in their lawyers and assert their IP rights over the syntax.
Stephen Wolfram knows about this. He just hasn't taken action yet.
It takes ages to grow the sharks to full size, even with the extra heat from the volcano.