Newsgroups: sci.math.symbolic, sci.math, sci.math.num-analysis, misc.forsale
Followup-To: misc.forsale
From: hoey@AIC.NRL.Navy.Mil (Dan Hoey)
Date: 7 Jul 92 21:06:32 GMT
Subject: Re: Are there any public domain symb.math pkgs?

In sci.math.symbolic, lace...@cs.UAlberta.CA (Winslowe Lacesso) asked:

>Please send any info you might have on public domain symbolic math
>packages, to d...@odin.uniras.dk (Douglas Nadworny), or if that bounces,
>to me (lace...@cs.ualberta.ca), & I will forward to him.

In several newsgroups, hu...@deakin.OZ.AU (Weiguang Huang) replied:

> I suggest you consider SymbMath. [advertisement deleted]

I suggest you avoid SymbMath for the following reasons:

1. It is not what you asked for.  You asked for public domain
software, and SymbMath requires a license.  Even if you just wanted a
free package, Dr. Huang charges money for SymbMath.

2. It is apparently not very good.  Even when Dr. Huang found a review
of his product in Australian PC Week, the best thing they could say
about it was that it uses less memory than Mathematica.

3. It promotes network abuse.  Dr. Huang repeatedly posts his
advertisements for this commercial package to a large number of
technical newsgroups, in which advertising is not welcome.  If you buy
his software, he will be encouraged to post more advertisements.
Worse, you encourage other parasitic marketers to advertise in the
technical groups.

For these reasons, I urge you to boycott Dr. Huang's SymbMath
software.

Dan Hoey
Hoey@AIC.NRL.Navy.Mil