Am I the only one who gets tired of, "oh look something free on HN, okay time to shit on it, it's not open source".
All this talk about data-scientists only using open-source is ridiculous. At my university, departments like medicine, biology, chemistry, and life-science make a huge part. The most commonly used programs there are Excel and SPSS. Other departments use Matlab extensively. In finance, SAP is a big player. All of them are closed source and cost money.
Why can't people just appreciate that it is a huge step for Wolfram to release a free version of its kernel and think that this is an opportunity?
Most people here are complaining about the license, not the software. They think the software is good but the license is holding it down. To me this looks like valuable feedback.
> They think the software is good but the license is holding it down
The issue I'm really trying to point out is
They think the software is cost free but the license is holding it down
Wolfram Engine has always been good, but it seems people are more in a huff because it's priced free but not open source.
I.e expecting that if something is given to you at no cost, it also must be open sourced.
One other reason why people might be so upset here is the naming of this product. "Free" is commonly used to describe libre software. This is at best an oversight by the marketing team and at worst deliberately set up to deceive developers.