In the recent past, software development for algebraic computations has been closely related to computer algebra systems (e.g. Maxima, Maple, Mathematica, etc.) the evolution of which follows two patterns: Either the development teams extend the kernel by implementing new functionality using the implementation language, or contributions are made in the programming language featured by the system and added in the default distribution or on the web by the authors. In other words, their evolution tends to be done in a proprietary model.

Several contributions made by researchers are nowadays developed, tested and incorporated into the above mentioned systems. Indeed, the academic community has played an important role in the evolution of those systems. While such contributions benefit to users of a given system (usually the system orginally targetted) they have to be rewritten to fit the framework of another one. In other words, those contributions are very system-dependent (while usually solving system-independent problems) and cannot be used in another context. Moreover, depending on the system, use of a general purpose programming language to implement specialized algorithms may inccur a performance overhead which may not be acceptable in certain applications.

That explains why some specialized packages have florished recently, solving efficiently domain specific tasks. Several of these tools exist as libraries, or interpreters on top of dedicated libraries equipped with a scripting language. It turns out that several of these software are reimplementing similar functionalities, which could be shared. On the other hand, more and more software are built on top of such efficient tools (e.g. GMP, Lapack,...) and their existence is closely related to the evolution of such tools. The connection between all these implementations and the interoperability of existing and future systems and libraries need to be addressed.

The objectives

The specific issues that we would like to address in this proposal are reusability, efficiency, integration and evolutions of algebraic software. In particular, we are interested in promoting the following points:

• Mutualise the efforts of implementation that are done in different groups;
• Organize the developments of packages in a coherent environment;
• Furnish tools to build dedicated and efficient components for solving real problems in Computer Algebra;
• Take into account the evolution of the components, the adjunction of new components;
• Serve as a publication support for software developments, with an evaluation process;
• Distribute the software publication (ftp, cdrom, ...).

A support for software publication

One of our objectives is to provide a support for software publication, which is similar to classical scientific publication. This requires on one side to settle down a process for the evaluation of software contributions, on the other hand to facilitate the diffusion of such tools.

• Submission process: the packages will be reviewed before their integration in the roxane distribution, according to their coherence with the scientific domain, to their compatibility with the existing packages, to their accessibility, to their performance, ... The packages are supposed to be accessible from a production site. Their integration in the roxane distribution, will be evaluated through automatized process, based on resource descriptor files .
• Distribution: it will contain the positiveley evaluated packages, assembled in a coherent way, so that their use for a non-expert person will be simplified. The distribution will be accessible by ftp . A cdrom will also be printed and distributed throught classical publication means.
• Web server: a dedicated server will be installed, in order to provide an easy acces to new versions, documentation, examples , mailing list ... It will also provide data for easy installation or update of the different packages. This includes for instance, the automatic construction of rpm files, for linux environment.
• Training activities: the organisation of summer schools are planned in order to give tutorials on the tools of the distribution. It should help (new) users to handle easily the different packages and/or to contribute to the project.

Architecture details

Current list of packages

Installation

Submission

Web sites

• Project site
• Development site

Contact

The following mailing lists are available:

• roxane-develop@lipforge.ens-lyon.fr for discussions about the project development.
• roxane@sophia.inria.fr for submission of packages and general discussions.