I think that Bill Schelter worked pretty hard at
integrating the Maxima-GCL-Tcl/TK-C interface; he
also may have had some insight as to why his
continued support of GCL was better than going to
CMUCL and CLISP (other than the natural inclination
we all have to avoid NIH [Not Invented Here]).
I guess what we've seen is that the default handling
of growing a larger heap space in GCL is not right
for Maxima, given certain problems. And that rebuilding
on some new systems causes problems.
1. Do we know that the growing of larger heap space
is an inherent problem, or just related to our inability
to configure it?
2. Do we know that CMUCL and CLISP are better in
this regard?
I think other issues include portability to other
platforms (Mac, various UNIX e.g. Sun Solaris, HP-UX,
BSD-UNIX.. not just one Linux).
I guess I do not have a specific proposal here if we
somehow decide GCL should be maintained, but no one
will volunteer to do it! (Pay someone?)
RJF