derive work-alikes, symbolic algebra systems, maxima

[Jan Hlavacek <lahvak@math.ohio-state.edu>]

Back to the question of derive like programs and symbolic algebra
systems.  It seems that the conclusion reached by the list was that
there is mupad which is free,  and everything else is commercial.  Did
anybody take a look at maxima (ftp://ftp.ma.utexas.edu/pub/maxima)?  I
am not sure about their license,  CAIN (http://www.riaca.win.tue.nl/CAN/)
lists it as commercial,  but it is on the list of GNU software at
www.gnu.org .  The tarball doesn't contain any license at all,  but it
heavily depends on gnu tools (gnu common lisp, texinfo, configure and so
on)

It seems very good,  probably not as strong as mathematica or macsyma,
but I bet it can compare to derive.  Of course,  it doesn't have the
frontend. 

By the way,  their ftp site also has netmath,  a simple web browser with
math capabilities,  so you can run computation on a remote "nmtp
server".  Their nmtp server seems to run on a linux machine.  It looks
pretty neat.

-- 
Jan Hlav\'{a}\v{c}ek
lahvak@math.ohio-state.edu  (Blind Carbon Copies will bounce)
www: http://www.math.ohio-state.edu/~lahvak/