MAINZ, Germany, November 6, 2001 (for immediate release) The GiNaC hackers, the leading providers of advanced mathematical software solutions for research and industrial applications, loudly announce the availability of GiNaC version 1.0. GiNaC stands for "GiNaC is not a CAS", i.e. not a Computer Algebra System. This is reminiscent to the term GNU, which stands for "GNU is not Unix", yet GNU systems widely define Unix today. It is a C++ class-library that allows certain common symbolic manipulations to be expressed directly in that language. "This release is going to change a whole lot of things" says Richard Kreckel, vice president of GiNaC's PR department. "Competing closed-source systems like Mathematica and Maple must be considered obsolete now and will surely soon fall into oblivion -- Macsyma already has." Asked whether GiNaC can really compete with all the fancy features and gimmicks found in those systems he replied: "Hey, there is always room for version 2.0 and the next generation!" Alexander Frink, vice president of GiNaC's sales department, could not be reached for a statement. He was reckoned to be busy encashing donations from millions of joyous users overwhelmed with enthusiasm. GiNaC is free software and licensed under the GNU general public license (GPL). "Having a truly scalable symbolic system is going to solve many of todays problems" says Christian Bauer, vice president of the research and development department. "Applications range from pure maths and physics over geological surveys, long-term stock options and wheather forecasts to such fields as wine-making and Japanese cuisine." The newly released version 1.0 contains "absolutely no significant changes relative to the last version whatsoever" according to Bauer. Asked how he sees further development he crypticly proclaimed "We are simply going to do what we did with the Macintosh: We emulate all other systems, including their bugs." Instructions how to download and install GiNaC on a computer system can be found at <http://www.ginac.de/Download.html>. Also, it comes pre-bundled with several distributions of the popular Linux operating system as well as with FreeBSD. Because of this dominant position on the consumers' computer desktops the US department of justice (DOJ) is considering filing an antitrust law-suit. "Okay, Microsoft got away with this practice, but we are not going to tolerate imitators", said DOJ attorney general John Ashcroft at a meeting with press. Germany's foreign minister Joschka Fischer delayed his trip to meet Palestinian president Jassir Arafat to stop in Mainz and congratulate the GiNaC folks for their release on behalf of Germany's chancellor Gerhard Schroeder. IT-industry friendly Mr. Schroeder was said to be busy "getting the beast installed" on his PC. "This new release is going to have a tremendous impact on global stability" Mr. Fischer said. "We have observed how politicians and suspected terrorists alike have become addicted to GiNaC and been converted to coding machines -- in a noble sense. Wherever they find a PC they start emitting mesmeric steams and then the miracle of code generation happens."