Richard Fateman <fateman@cs.berkeley.edu> writes:
> 2. The Macsyma source code circa 1982 is not
> covered by the Gnu public license.
But the Maxima source code is covered by the GNU public license, and
that seems most relevant.
> It is at
> this point FREE software. Byt contrast, the Gnu software
> is RESTRICTED by the Gnu public license.
But still free, in some opinions, and designed to stay that way.
> Someone could take Macsyma, polish it up, make it
> better (or worse) and sell it, license it,
> make money on it, and not distribute the revised
> source. This might be attractive to some
> entrepreneur, and useful to some body of users
> who would like to pay for support, and not have
> to worry about source code etc.
That was done, right? And the result is that, except for the copies
that are already out there, Macsyma is unavailable. Any improvements
specific to that version are currently lost.
> The downside of GPL is that such an entrepreneur would be
> discouraged if Macsyma code were GPL'd.
The GPL ensures that what happened to Macsyma won't happen to Maxima.
That makes me happy.
> I do not know the status of Bill Schelter's add-on
> code and GPL.
According to the README in the tar file, the code there is GPLed, that
would include the add-on code. I don't know of any mention of
dual-licensing.
Jay