[caligastia]

Agreed. Mathematica is awesome, and I did research with it that would've not been possible with any other tool, but the day I had to contact the company for permission to transfer the license to another computer made me realize I didn't want to build any IP on top of their tech.

A language, unlike a complete environment like Mathematica, allows you to build your own programs whole-cloth. But if those programs ultimately require Wolfram's permission to run, I don't really care how awesome it is, I wouldn't touch it with a 10 foot pole, for fear of it becoming the next J++.

They can still make money by charging for printed manuals, support, or offering some sort of supercomputing back-end like EC2 for research institutions. But for a serious developer to invest their own time learning this tool, the risk of a closed ecosystem is too high.