Mathematica and Free Software

"Free" software (I use scarequotes because GNU isn't truly free - it restricts freedom, innovation and choice) is not generally standard in any of the biological sciences that I'm acquainted with (with the exception of R, which no one knows how to use - we all use Excel and pencil/paper instead). This guy makes it sound like he's speaking for all of science, but I suspect that he doesn't even speak for the majority of mathematics.

Science is not all reducible to physics or mathematics. The rest of us are not "trivial". Most of us are unaware of the GNU religion, and we'll stay that way because it has nothing to do with getting our science done. This is because GNU won't make good, easy to use software for us (that has the latest features we need), but a company often will.

Well that's lovely and all. Give us software of the quality/completeness of mathematica and we'll consider it.