Re: Just another pre-installed program
What many commenters here don't seem to realize is that the grumbling was not about removing it from the default image (so it's no longer a "pre-installed program") but removing it entirely from the Raspbian repos. For a few days, it was gone for good. It was not possible to install it *at all*. I believe that most of us who need it would be quite happy to install it manually, but that possibility was removed too.
Given how quickly Wolfram reacted when people started to complain, I wonder if the Raspberry Pi foundation talked to them at all before removing it. I understand that the contract expired, but the reasonable thing for RPi foundation would have been to ask in advance, "Hey Wolfram, are you planning to extend the contract or is this the end?". Of course, we don't know what happened behind the scenes, but the impression they're giving is that they "quietly" removed Mathematica entirely "because no one uses it anyway" without consulting Wolfram at all, and left all RPi/Mathematica users high and dry.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
