In episode 22, we interviewed Robert Dodier from the Maxima project. After a brief introduction and a presentation of Robert's current uses for Maxima he introduced what is Maxima and what can be achieved with it. We discussed some core concepts of Maxima's language as well as how to access the documentation within the software to help users. Then discussion went on about the interesting origin story of Maxima and its origin as a tool for AI. We then talked about the current state of the project and how can someone provide help. As well as our usual quick questions, we had an interesting discussion about the social aspects within FLOSS and other self-organized projects.

00:00:17 Introduction00:00:26 Presentation of Robert Dodier00:02:01 The scope of Maxima and its application for Bayesian inferences00:02:57 Why not use R or another programming language for Bayesian inferences?00:05:03 When did he discover Maxima?00:05:29 Maxima's core features stability since 200300:06:04 His 30 seconds elevator pitchfor Maxima00:06:43 Reference manual and Maxima's documentation00:07:52 Accessing Maxima's documentation00:08:41 Comparison with Maple and Mathematica00:10:50 The concept of "code equal data"?00:12:54 Maxima's language complexity/simplicity00:15:13 User interfaces for Maxima00:16:24 Console interface for Maxima00:17:12 Presentation of the resulting equations or results00:17:46 Integrating Maxima and LaTeX00:19:08 The origin story of Maxima00:25:17 Licensing status before the relicensing to GPL00:26:00 Maxima for undergrad students and researchers00:28:33 Robert's contributions to the project and its self-organized structure00:31:39 How many people are involved in the project00:32:13 Communication channels for the project00:32:52 Underlying technologies in Maxima00:34:27 Ressources for newcomers00:35:47 Robert's vision about FLOSS in science00:36:26 Negative impacts of FLOSS on science00:37:25 The most notable scientific discovery in recent years00:39:22 Robert's favourite text processing tool00:40:04 The social aspect of FLOSS00:42:34 Anything else he wanted to share with us?00:43:39 How to contact Robert00:43:57 Outro