I am all in favor of making documentation available, and it would
be nice for it to be free, but this should not be a requirement.
One rationale for someone to write more books about macsyma/maxima
(e.g. calculus with ..., problem solving with ... , programming with ...)
is to sell them in the conventional (for-profit) way. I can't image
we could restrict authors, anyway. ("all books about X must be free??")
RJF
C Y wrote:
> --- offray.luna@javeriana.edu.co wrote:
>
>>Hi all,
>>
>>Great! maybe you can try the Open Resources Magazine which grants the
>>rigths for vervatim copies and derivated works _only_ for
>>translations. (May be I can help with a spanish tranlation). I know
>>that may be this is not a updated documentation but having the doc
>>translated to spanish would make easier coordinate a "multilingual"
>>documentation efford for the 6.0 release.
>>
>
> We don't want to restrict derivative works - on the contrary! There
> will likely be many documents to write for various audiences of Maxima,
> and we want to be able to reuse work as much as possible. Similar to
> the source code itself, the only restriction on the documentation and
> derivative works should be that it remains free. Maxima cannot survive
> without it's documentation.
>
> As an example, someone who uses Maxima the way Dr. Fateman does, at a
> very advanced level, won't want to mess with an introduction. Newbies,
> however, would be quickly driven away by the more dense and
> intimidating documentation. Both may have information and parts in
> common, which we would want to be able to reuse. Restrictions on
> derivative works would pose a problem.
>
> Also, another possible case. What if we devise a format for discussion
> of this type of program that other open source programs, such as axiom
> or yacas, want to use. What happens then?
>
> Openness is, IMHO, very definitely the way to go here.
>
> CY
>
> __________________________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> New DSL Internet Access from SBC & Yahoo!
> http://sbc.yahoo.com
> _______________________________________________
> Maxima mailing list
> Maxima@www.math.utexas.edu
> http://www.math.utexas.edu/mailman/listinfo/maxima
>