Fwd: [WR #2158917] Could you please clarify terms of use for WolframAlpha
Dr. David Kirkby
comparisons with Sage results. Alex Ghitza in particular thought we might be
breaking the terms of the usage. I asked Wolfram Research, and here's their
reply. (What I asked is written below their reply).
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [WR #2158917] Could you please clarify terms of use for WolframAlpha
Date: Mon, 27 Dec 2010 12:20:23 -0600
From: Jessica Helfrich via RT <permi...@wolfram.com>
Reply-To: permi...@wolfram.com
To: david....@onetel.net
Dear Dr. David Kirkby,
Thank you for your inquiry. We are happy to allow Wolfram|Alpha links and
results to be used for the limited purpose of non-automated querying for
verification and bug-testing purposes within the Sage test suite. We trust that
you will continue to adhere to the Terms of Use associated with our Site, and we
would be very interested in receiving various examples of how Wolfram|Alpha
results were useful with this project.
Thank you for your interest in Wolfram|Alpha and we look forward to hearing from
you soon.
Sincerely,
Jessica Helfrich
Wolfram
jess...@wolfram.com
On Wed Dec 01 20:48:21 2010, david....@onetel.net wrote:
> I'm sure you are aware of the Sage open-source mathematics software
>
> http://www.sagemath.org/
>
> which has a mission of creating a viable free open source alternative
> to Magma, Maple, Mathematica and MATLAB.
>
> Obviously Sage has a test suite where results from Sage are compared
> to a set of known results. For example, one test for the factorial()
> function is:
>
> sage: factorial(10)
> 3628800
>
> As you are no doubt aware, all non-trivial software contains bugs. It
> would be very useful to compare the result from Sage to that of other
> software which is developed independently.
>
> One way, which could be used in some circumstances, is to compare the
> Sage result to that obtained from Wolfram Alpha. For example
>
> http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=10!
>
> shows 10 factorial is 3628800, so there is a very high probability
> that WolframAlpha and Sage are both correct.
>
> It would sometimes be useful to add a comment to the Sage test suite
> that the result has been compared to that obtained by WolframAlpha. So
> we could write something like:
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> WolframAlpha gives the same result as Sage - see:
> http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=10!
>
> sage: factorial(10)
> 3628800
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Sage has tens of thousands of tests and that number is increasing all
> the time. Only a fairly small fractions of those tests could be
> computed with WolframAlpha, and even in cases where they could, we
> might not chose to do so.
>
> Looking at the terms of use of WolframAlpha,
>
> http://www.wolframalpha.com/termsofuse.html
>
> I personally can't see anything that would suggest that comparing
> results with Wolfram Alpha, and documenting this would breach the
> terms of use. But when I suggested we could verify a result in
> WolframAlpha
>
> http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=N[Integrate[+Sin[x]%2Fx^2%2C{x%2C1%2CPi%2F2}]%2C50]
>
> one Sage developer questioned whether this would be within the terms
> of use. See:his comments at:
>
> http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel/msg/1f8af294fbf40ccc?hl=en&
>
> One section in particular of your terms of use says::
>
> "You are not allowed to use Wolfram|Alpha to create something that is
> likely or intended to be reused as a data source for further
> processing, or that in some other way serves as a replacement or
> alternative to using Wolfram|Alpha itself. This applies whether what
> you create is in electronic or print form."
>
> Sage, has a web based interface that allows one to perform advanced
> mathematical calculations. Clearly there are some calculations that
> could be performed in WolframAlpha, but which could also be performed
> in Sage. If you try Sage - you can get a free account at
>
> http://t2nb.math.washington.edu:8080/
>
> you will soon realise that Sage is quite different to WolframAlpha.
> Sage is certainly not intended to be a replacement for WolframAlpha -
> in fact, Sage existed several years before WolframAlpha.
>
> Sage has its own language, which is based on Python. Sage can only
> process input using that syntax. It does not attempt to process
> questions the way WolframAlpha does.
>
> To save any further discussions on the Sage developers list about
> whether the use of WolframAlpha in the way I explained would be
> permissible, could you please clarify the matter.
>
> Obviously using WolframAlpha to compare results with Sage would be of
> benefit to the Sage project. But it would also benefit Wolfram
> Research too. In the event that comparisons with WolframAlpha showed
> different results, and we concluded WolframAlpha had a bug, we would
> out of politeness let you know. In fact, only recently I made your
> technical support team aware of a documentation error in PrimePi[] and
> PrimeQ[], which I understand will be fixed. This documentation error
> was discovered when some comparisons were made between Sage and
> Mathematica.
>
> Dr. David Kirkby (a developer of the Sage mathematics software).
>
Timothy Clemans
permission.
> --
> To post to this group, send an email to sage-...@googlegroups.com
> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to
> sage-devel+...@googlegroups.com
> For more options, visit this group at
> http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel
> URL: http://www.sagemath.org
>
William Stein
> make comparisons with Sage results. Alex Ghitza in particular thought we
> might be breaking the terms of the usage. I asked Wolfram Research, and
> here's their reply. (What I asked is written below their reply).
>
> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: [WR #2158917] Could you please clarify terms of use for
> WolframAlpha
> Date: Mon, 27 Dec 2010 12:20:23 -0600
> From: Jessica Helfrich via RT <permi...@wolfram.com>
> Reply-To: permi...@wolfram.com
> To: david....@onetel.net
>
> Dear Dr. David Kirkby,
>
> Thank you for your inquiry. We are happy to allow Wolfram|Alpha links and
> results to be used for the limited purpose of non-automated querying for
> verification and bug-testing purposes within the Sage test suite. We trust
Note the "non-automated" part. Perhaps this means they don't give
permission to do something like:
for n in range(100):
f = random_function()
if numerical_compare(f.differentiate(algorithm='maxima'),
f.differentiate(algorithm='wolfram|alpha')):
print f
I guess you can do something like this:
sage: some_input_line
some_output
and just happen to verify that with Wolfram|Alpha for yourself (say
during the review process). Perhaps you could put a comment like
this:
sage: some_input_line # test verified using Wolfram|Alpha
some_output
However, it sounds like you also don't get permission to do this:
sage: some_input_line(...) == wolfram_alpha('....') # optional -- internet
and actually run such tests.
-- William
Dr. David Kirkby
I don't blame Wolfram Research for not permitting automated testing, since it
could easily use a lot of their bandwidth and computing resources. You show 100
functions, but what's to stop one doing 1,000,000 and letting everyone who
doctests Sage run 1,000,000 tests. It would use too much of their resources.
> I guess you can do something like this:
>
> sage: some_input_line
> some_output
>
> and just happen to verify that with Wolfram|Alpha for yourself (say
> during the review process). Perhaps you could put a comment like
> this:
>
> sage: some_input_line # test verified using Wolfram|Alpha
> some_output
To me that is worthwhile. It means some tests can be verified by software which
is largelly developed independently of Sage. It does not require access to
Mathematica to execute the tests.
When we add some comments to test code, we should let Wolfram Research know of
some of the examples of where this has been useful, as requested. They have been
helpful to us - let's do likewise for them.
> However, it sounds like you also don't get permission to do this:
>
> sage: some_input_line(...) == wolfram_alpha('....') # optional -- internet
Agreed, and as I say, I don't blame them.
> and actually run such tests.
>
> -- William
>
Dave
--
A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
A: Top-posting.
Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?
Dave
Dr. David Kirkby
> Wow that's nice of them. I'm amazed they replied let alone grant you
> permission.
Actually, I've dealt with Wolfram Research a number of times over the years, and
always found them helpful. That has included Wolfram Research staff answering
questions on sci.math.symbolic, where it was clear the intent was to resolve
Sage issues.
So I'm not too surprised they have given us permission.
Dave
rjf
Wolfram has given you permission to do what they already gave you
permission to do.
You can type in an expression (either directly to W|A or via a link)
and look at the answer. They can't stop you if you compare it to the
answer from Sage.
You could use it in debugging some Sage code, perhaps. You knew that.
Of course, you
could also type the question in to Mathematica at UW.
They have not given you permission to have a Sage benchmarking program
automatically send a query
to Wolfram Alpha
(a) in a regression-testing mode to see if the answers are (still) the
same, or
(b)to see if Wolfram Alpha will respond to some randomized input in
the same way as Sage.
The regression testing issue is not so much of a limitation since the
Wolfram answer shouldn't change,
and so it does not have to be resubmitted to Wolfram.
Indeed, this part is pointless, because all it requires is to run the
problem once through
Mathematica, where you don't need to have to deal with the Wolfram
Alpha website. You save the
Mathematica answer in the comment in the Sage program, or perhaps in
some data file for
comparison later.
You only have to deal with Univ. Washington or some place that
installed Mathematica.
The second part (randomized input) cannot be done with Wolfram Alpha
in any automated fashion,
but you probably knew that it would be at least impolite to do so.
Especially if it were set up so that
everyone who recompiled Sage also ran the tests which sent 100,000
random queries to Wolfram.
But of course if you want to do something like this, you could run
stuff through Mathematica at UW.
So doing that part is pointless too.
It seems to me the only kind of scenario in which this "permission"
helps anything is, say, if you are on
a desert island, and are writing/debugging new Sage code, and you have
internet access
to Wolfram|Alpha but not Mathematica at UW or anywhere else. Maybe
some kind of Chinese
censorship internet firewall thing?
Their response doesn't actually change anything from what you already
had permission to do.
Though it does surprise me that they bothered to respond. Perhaps to
reinforce the fact
that you don't have permission to do what they already forbid you from
doing?
RJF
On Jan 2, 5:41 am, "Dr. David Kirkby" <david.kir...@onetel.net> wrote:
> On 01/ 2/11 05:45 AM, Timothy Clemans wrote:
>
> > Wow that's nice of them. I'm amazed they replied let alone grant you
> > permission.
>
> Actually, I've dealt with Wolfram Research a number of times over the years, and
> always found them helpful. That has included Wolfram Research staff answering
> questions on sci.math.symbolic, where it was clear the intent was to resolve
> Sage issues.
>
> So I'm not too surprised they have given us permission.
>
> Dave
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Sat, Jan 1, 2011 at 6:25 PM, Dr. David Kirkby
> >> make comparisons with Sage results. Alex Ghitza in particular thought we
> >> might be breaking the terms of the usage. I asked Wolfram Research, and
> >> here's their reply. (What I asked is written below their reply).
>
> >> -------- Original Message --------
> >> Subject: [WR #2158917] Could you please clarify terms of use for
> >> WolframAlpha
> >> Date: Mon, 27 Dec 2010 12:20:23 -0600
> >> From: Jessica Helfrich via RT<permissi...@wolfram.com>
> >> Reply-To: permissi...@wolfram.com
> >> To: david.kir...@onetel.net
>
> >> Dear Dr. David Kirkby,
>
> >> Thank you for your inquiry. We are happy to allow Wolfram|Alpha links and
> >> results to be used for the limited purpose of non-automated querying for
> >> verification and bug-testing purposes within the Sage test suite. We trust
> >> that you will continue to adhere to the Terms of Use associated with our
> >> Site, and we would be very interested in receiving various examples of how
> >> Wolfram|Alpha results were useful with this project.
>
> >> Thank you for your interest in Wolfram|Alpha and we look forward to hearing
> >> from you soon.
>
> >> Sincerely,
> >> Jessica Helfrich
> >> Wolfram
Dr. David Kirkby
>
> Wolfram has given you permission to do what they already gave you
> permission to do.
I would tend to agree, but then there are are some words in the terms and
conditions would could be interpreted as now allowing this use. Personally I
tended to agree, but Alex Ghitta was of the impression that we were on dodgy
ground, and I don't think he was the only one. So
> You can type in an expression (either directly to W|A or via a link)
> and look at the answer. They can't stop you if you compare it to the
> answer from Sage.
There was not total agreement on this.
> You could use it in debugging some Sage code, perhaps. You knew that.
> Of course, you
> could also type the question in to Mathematica at UW.
The problem is not everyone has access to Mathematica. My experience at UCL was
that even with a site license, that allowed Mathematica to be installed on every
computer in the university, the vast majority of people do not have access to
it, since they or their department had not purchased a license from the university.
> They have not given you permission to have a Sage benchmarking program
> automatically send a query
> to Wolfram Alpha
> (a) in a regression-testing mode to see if the answers are (still) the
> same, or
> (b)to see if Wolfram Alpha will respond to some randomized input in
> the same way as Sage.
No, I never asked for that anyway. I think that would be a most unreasonable
request.
> The regression testing issue is not so much of a limitation since the
> Wolfram answer shouldn't change,
> and so it does not have to be resubmitted to Wolfram.
> Indeed, this part is pointless, because all it requires is to run the
> problem once through
> Mathematica, where you don't need to have to deal with the Wolfram
> Alpha website.
But as I stated, not everyone has access to Mathematica. I know of at least once
test in Sage which has been compared to Maple, and the answers were the same.
But many people do not have access to Maple. At least Wolfram Alpha gives the
ability to compare a result that anyone can do. Of course, in due course Wolfram
Alpha could change, the usage conditions change.
> You save the
> Mathematica answer in the comment in the Sage program, or perhaps in
> some data file for
> comparison later.
>
> You only have to deal with Univ. Washington or some place that
> installed Mathematica.
You need to have access to Mathematica, which is not the same thing as your
university having it installed.
> The second part (randomized input) cannot be done with Wolfram Alpha
> in any automated fashion,
> but you probably knew that it would be at least impolite to do so.
Agreed.
> Especially if it were set up so that
> everyone who recompiled Sage also ran the tests which sent 100,000
> random queries to Wolfram.
Yes, I was well aware of that. I made that comment a few hours ago. It would be
totally unacceptable.
> But of course if you want to do something like this, you could run
> stuff through Mathematica at UW.
> So doing that part is pointless too.
Again, you are making the assumption that everyone has access to a copy of
Mathematica.
> It seems to me the only kind of scenario in which this "permission"
> helps anything is, say, if you are on
> a desert island, and are writing/debugging new Sage code, and you have
> internet access
> to Wolfram|Alpha but not Mathematica at UW or anywhere else. Maybe
> some kind of Chinese
> censorship internet firewall thing?
You seem to have overlooked the possibility that you are in the middle of a big
city, but have no Mathematica license.
> Their response doesn't actually change anything from what you already
> had permission to do.
It clarifies things. One could argue that we are creating something that is
intended to replace or serve as an alternative to Wolfram|Alpha, which was the
issue raised here
http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel/msg/1f8af294fbf40ccc?hl=en&
It's clear that for some problems, using Sage is an alternative to using
Wolfram|Alpha.
> Though it does surprise me that they bothered to respond.
They are in general more polite & constructive than you.
> Perhaps to
> reinforce the fact
> that you don't have permission to do what they already forbid you from
> doing?
The reasons are pretty immaterial. Their response has clarified the position,
which is all I wanted.
William Stein
<david....@onetel.net> wrote:
> On 01/ 2/11 04:31 PM, rjf wrote:
>> You only have to deal with Univ. Washington or some place that
>> installed Mathematica.
>
> You need to have access to Mathematica, which is not the same thing as your
> university having it installed.
rjf is wrong -- the site license that UW purchases from Wolfram for
Mathematica does not legally allow David Kirkby to ssh into a UW
machine and use the UW copy of Mathematica. Only UW
faculty/staff/students can do so without violating the license.
>> The second part (randomized input) cannot be done with Wolfram Alpha
>> in any automated fashion,
>> but you probably knew that it would be at least impolite to do so.
>
> Agreed.
>
>> Especially if it were set up so that
>> everyone who recompiled Sage also ran the tests which sent 100,000
>> random queries to Wolfram.
>
> Yes, I was well aware of that. I made that comment a few hours ago. It would
> be totally unacceptable.
>
>> But of course if you want to do something like this, you could run
>> stuff through Mathematica at UW.
>> So doing that part is pointless too.
>
> Again, you are making the assumption that everyone has access to a copy of
> Mathematica.
Or even that non-UW affiliates can *legally* use the version here.
>> Though it does surprise me that they bothered to respond.
>
> They are in general more polite & constructive than you.
And more professional.
Dr. David Kirkby
> On Sun, Jan 2, 2011 at 10:35 AM, Dr. David Kirkby
> <david....@onetel.net> wrote:
>> On 01/ 2/11 04:31 PM, rjf wrote:
>>> Though it does surprise me that they bothered to respond.
>>
>> They are in general more polite& constructive than you.
>
> And more professional.
Yes, I agree with you there.
Sometimes Richard can be helpful, and obviously knows quite a bit about
mathematical software. But for reasons known only to Richard, he devotes a large
proportion of his time being negative, unhelpful and generally obnoxious.
I don't know if you have ever seen Richard's review of Mathematica:
http://www.math.bme.hu/~jtoth/FelsMma/mma.review.pdf
but it is one of the most negative, biased "papers" I've ever seen. I'd like to
know if some of his criticisms are true or not, but the paper is so biased, that
I would not trust anything it says.
Timothy Clemans
On Sun, Jan 2, 2011 at 2:14 PM, Dr. David Kirkby
Eviatar
because an answer can be verified much faster than with Mathematica.
As well, Wolfram|Alpha should be the same for all testers at any given
time, while Mathematica versions may be different.
Eviatar
>
> http://www.math.bme.hu/~jtoth/FelsMma/mma.review.pdf
>
> but it is one of the most negative, biased "papers" I've ever seen. I'd like to
> know if some of his criticisms are true or not, but the paper is so biased, that
> I would not trust anything it says."
criticisms about the language. I think a similar review for Sage, if
constructive, could be very useful.
rjf
On Jan 2, 2:14 pm, "Dr. David Kirkby" <david.kir...@onetel.net> wrote:
> http://www.math.bme.hu/~jtoth/FelsMma/mma.review.pdf
>
> but it is one of the most negative, biased "papers" I've ever seen.
Is there a particular statement that you believe to be false?
After all, that paper was reviewed by referees.
In my view, many of the comments
are pertinent to the current version as well as the version that was
reviewed (like version 2 and 3).
I have heard that others hold the belief that all the problems I
found have been corrected. I can believe that some of the minor
bugs have been fixed, but I suspect that every one of the major
mistakes
(under the guise of "features") remain.
But this is perhaps not best place to discuss Mathematica bugs.
My point regarding Mathematica licenses and Wolfram Alpha is
that there is a simple solution that involves not using Wolfram Alpha.
Not everyone needs access to Mathematica, as you continue to claim.
A few. And if UW refuses to allow you to log in to some machine with
a license, you could mail your file to someone at UW.
rjf
On Jan 2, 2:14 pm, "Dr. David Kirkby" <david.kir...@onetel.net> wrote:
>
...
> Sometimes Richard can be helpful, and obviously knows quite a bit about
> mathematical software. But for reasons known only to Richard, he devotes a large
> proportion of his time being negative, unhelpful and generally obnoxious.
>
of experience. If you are standing on the shoulders of others
(sort of the idea behind Sage), that's one thing. If you are standing
on their feet, that's another.
If I felt that someone was excessively pessimistic about the chance
of achieving something, I would maybe have some words of
encouragement. I don't recall that happening in Sage-world.
RJF
David Kirkby
>
>
> On Jan 2, 2:14 pm, "Dr. David Kirkby" <david.kir...@onetel.net> wrote:
>
>> http://www.math.bme.hu/~jtoth/FelsMma/mma.review.pdf
>>
>> but it is one of the most negative, biased "papers" I've ever seen.
>
> Could you be more specific?
> Is there a particular statement that you believe to be false?
> After all, that paper was reviewed by referees.
> In my view, many of the comments
> are pertinent to the current version as well as the version that was
> reviewed (like version 2 and 3).
I'll send you some comments privately in a week or so - sage-devel is
not really the place to discuss my thoughts about your Mathematica
review paper. But I did think it was rather a biased review paper.
> I have heard that others hold the belief that all the problems I
> found have been corrected. I can believe that some of the minor
> bugs have been fixed, but I suspect that every one of the major
> mistakes
> (under the guise of "features") remain.
No doubt. But open-source software is no stranger to this either.
Printing a floating point number like 0.123 without the leading 0 on
some platforms some of the time is considered a feature of Maxima by
some of its developers.
> But this is perhaps not best place to discuss Mathematica bugs.
Agreed.
> My point regarding Mathematica licenses and Wolfram Alpha is
> that there is a simple solution that involves not using Wolfram Alpha.
> Not everyone needs access to Mathematica, as you continue to claim.
I've never claimed everyone needs access to Mathematica. What I claim is:
* The expected output of Sage tests should be verified to be correct
if at all possible - we should not have tests where the "expected
value" is what someone happens to get on their computer. That is the
case in some tests. I'd like to see as a comment in the source code,
why the expected output is correct.
* Using Mathematica will in some cases give extra confidence the
results from Sage are correct, if both Mathematica and Sage agree on
the result. This is primarily because they are developed independently
of each other.
* Not everyone has access to Mathematica.
* Wolfram|Alpha provides a sub-set of Mathematica. In some cases that
subset may be sufficient to verify results.
So I certainly do not claim everyone needs access to Mathematica.
> A few. And if UW refuses to allow you to log in to some machine with
> a license, you could mail your file to someone at UW.
I think even you would see that it is more convenient to be able to
use Wolfram|Alpha than to email someone else and ask them to try it in
Mathematica.
Dave
David Kirkby
>
>
> On Jan 2, 2:14 pm, "Dr. David Kirkby" <david.kir...@onetel.net> wrote:
>>
> ...
>
>> Sometimes Richard can be helpful, and obviously knows quite a bit about
>> mathematical software. But for reasons known only to Richard, he devotes a large
>> proportion of his time being negative, unhelpful and generally obnoxious.
>>
>
> It's an antidote to excessive optimism and, in some cases, the voice
> of experience. If you are standing on the shoulders of others
> (sort of the idea behind Sage), that's one thing. If you are standing
> on their feet, that's another.
It's not just with Sage. If I read sci.math.symbolic and see something
written by Daniel Lichtblau, it is going to be written with the
intension of helping someone. Obviously Daniel's primarily helping
with Mathematica issues, as he works for Wolfram Research, but he is
just a genuinely helpful guy. He does not act as a Mathematica sales
person, and does not dismiss Sage, In fact, quite the opposite,
Daniel has been helpful to me when it was clear my intension was to
solve Sage issues using Mathematica.
If I took a random post of yours on sci.math.symbolic, there's a
pretty high probability its just a dig at someone or some software
package that's neither Lisp or Maxima.
> If I felt that someone was excessively pessimistic about the chance
> of achieving something, I would maybe have some words of
> encouragement.
You seem to be so anti-Sage, without even trying it, that I can't
actually imagine that day myself.
> I don't recall that happening in Sage-world.
> RJF
Dave
Nicolas M. Thiery
> Sometimes Richard can be helpful, and obviously knows quite a bit
> about mathematical software. But for reasons known only to Richard,
> he devotes a large proportion of his time being negative, unhelpful
> and generally obnoxious.
I think anyone who follows a bit sage-devel knows about Richard's
style and can make up his mind about it by himself. It is certainly
not a style we recommend, but we won't change him and sage-devel is
better with Richard around than without: let's just benefit from his
experience and knowledge and ignore the rest.
Besides I have myself occasionally felt very frustrated, when some
people did reimplement stuff from MuPAD-Combinat without looking
enough at it -- from my perspective -- to benefit from all the hard
gained experience that was accumulated there. Note that I am not
*blaming* them: I am not proud of it, but I have myself done the same
with other software. It's a hard task to be aware of everything that
has been implemented everywhere. And that's just for a little seven
years project. So I can get a feeling of what the frustration can be
when it is about a major project of a full career.
So thanks Richard for being here!
Best,
Nicolas
PS for Richard: there sure is a bit of over the top reciprocal
cheering going on here; but most of the time that's the only payment
we get back for a hard volunteer work; so we can indulge ourselves a
bit with that. It's peanuts compared to the reciprocal over the top
salaries the golden boys indulge themselves with :-)
--
Nicolas M. Thi�ry "Isil" <nth...@users.sf.net>
http://Nicolas.Thiery.name/
kcrisman
On Jan 28, 6:18 am, "Nicolas M. Thiery" <Nicolas.Thi...@u-psud.fr>
wrote:
> > Sometimes Richard can be helpful, and obviously knows quite a bit
> > about mathematical software. But for reasons known only to Richard,
> > he devotes a large proportion of his time being negative, unhelpful
> > and generally obnoxious.
>
> I think anyone who follows a bit sage-devel knows about Richard's
> style and can make up his mind about it by himself. It is certainly
> not a style we recommend, but we won't change him and sage-devel is
> better with Richard around than without: let's just benefit from his
> experience and knowledge and ignore the rest.
Well said.