> I think that if you build on top of another project,
> your should not suppress their banner by default.
When you design a program, one of the things you design is its
appearance to the user. If you are addressing other hackers who are
working directly in CLisp, it makes perfect sense for you to provide a
CLisp banner. If, on the other hand, you're building a symbolic algebra
system which is addressed to mathematicians, scientists, and engineers,
the CLisp banner can only be a distraction. Indeed, this sort of thing
(in the context of advertising) is explicitly criticized on the GNU
Project Web site as "obnoxious" (see
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/bsd.html).
> Credit here is secondary.
Oh? The Maxima project contains the work of dozens of people in many
organizations working for several decades. Why should one group among
them get disproportionate billing at startup? Should our startup really
look like:
********************************************************
* *
* ((This program) (was (originally developed) (at (the *
* (Massachusetts (Institute of Technology)))))) *
* I H T F P *
********************************************************
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
% %
% MacLisp to Common Lisp conversion libraries %
% provided by %
% University of California at Berkeley %
% rent control forever!!! %
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
************************************************
*..............................................*
*....GUI.plotting.routines.thanks.to...........*
*.....William.Schelter.........................*
*.....University.of.Texas......................*
*..............................................*
************************************************
************************************************
* *
* tcl/tk GUI tools from *
* John Ousterhout *
* University of California at Berkeley *
* "Perl stinks" *
************************************************
&%&%&%&%&%&%&%&%&%&%&%&%&%&%&%&%
Hi Mom! Allahu Akbar!
&%&%&%&%&%&%&%&%&%&%&%&%&%&%&%&%
I don't think so.
> All I am saying is that _adding_ Maxima's banner to the CL's one
> (instead of replacing it), and giving your users an option to
> turn both off at the same time, is, IMHO, a nicer (= less conflict-
> prone) way to handle this issue.
No, that would be a poor design choice. The startup banner should tell
the user the basics: what version of what program is s/he using; what
copyright and license apply; where to get additional information. Much
more than that is useless and distracting; anything less is
inconsiderate.
> Do I smell politics here? <http://clisp.cons.org/faq.html#menorah>;
I don't know if you'll believe me, but I only became aware of the
menorah issue half-way into writing this email (when I started composing
the banners above) -- I use Maxima on GCL, so had not seen the CLisp
banner. In this email, and my previous one, I have been concerned only
to give the user the best experience.
That said, I do find it in poor taste to appropriate a religious symbol
(ANY religious symbol) to symbolize a software project. But the beauty
of free software is that I am free to correct such lapses of taste.
-s