Teaching differential equations with Maxima

Dear Wolfgang,

Please, accept my sincere apologies. I sent the previous
message by error before having completed it.

Many thanks for the book you have brought to my attention
too. I have been unaware of it so far. I will see if it is still
accessible so that I can buy a copy of it.

I completely agree with you that the difference in code
between Maxima and Macsyma is quite slight (at least
before 1990-1995). Therefore, I believe that we will
be able to increase the share library of Maxima by adding
additional packages such as those you suggest. But this
requires time as far as I am concerned and, moreover,
a permission by the authors is required.

Of course, in case you could proceed to these tasks
instead of me, this would be very helpful since, naturally,
you are an experienced user of Maxima while I am not
and I require much time to understand what these packages
do in theory and in the Maxima language. Unfortunately,
these packages are not elementary ones, but rather difficult
ones. Therefore, your further help with respect to their
incorporation in Maxima will be valuable.

You are completely right about portability especially for
the period up to 1990-1995. On the other hand, GNU-
Lisp translation may not be a serious problem (if required).

Many most sincere thanks again and best regards from
Patras,

Nikos


----- Original Message -----
From: "Nikolaos I. Ioakimidis" <ioakimidis at otenet>
To: "Wolfgang Jenkner" <wjenkner@inode.at>
Cc: <maxima@mail.ma.utexas.edu>
Sent: Saturday, February 08, 2003 7:31 PM
Subject: Re: [Maxima] Teaching differential equations with Maxima


>
> Dear Wolfgang,
>
> Many thanks again for your help and support.
>
> My present impression is now clear that I have at first to test and
> understand these files before proceeding to asking for a permission
> for distribution by the authors.
>
> I am also grateful to you for your having brought to my
> attention the book
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Wolfgang Jenkner" <wjenkner at inode>
> To: "Nikolaos I. Ioakimidis" <ioakimidis@otenet.gr>
> Cc: <maxima@mail.ma.utexas.edu>
> Sent: Saturday, February 08, 2003 7:14 PM
> Subject: Re: [Maxima] Teaching differential equations with Maxima
>
>
> >
> > "Nikolaos I. Ioakimidis" <ioakimidis@otenet.gr> writes
> >
> > > > `Of course, those packages were written for the commercial
> > > > Macsyma . . .'
> > >
> > > which is, to be sincere, disappointing for me since it forbids me
> > > to distribute these files to my students, since they belong to the
> > > commercial Macsyma. I have also been able to verify in some
> > > of them not only the Copyright sign by the authors prohibiting
> > > reproduction, but also the additional sign.
> > >
> > > MACSYMA copyright and trademark: Macsyma, Inc.,
> > > Arlington, Ma, USA
> >
> > The file
> >
> > ftp://ftp.mines.colorado.edu/pub/papers/math_cs_dept/software/readme.now
> >
> > states that the following form of copyright applies to all packages in
> > the sub-directories:
> >
> >          You are welcome to use any of the software packages free of
> >          charge for scientific work, with acknowledgement of the
> >          developers and proper reference to either our research papers
> >          or to the software, or to both.
> >
> >          The software may not be reproduced or sold without written
> >          consent of the authors (Copyright 1995-2002).
> >
> > I think that your intended use qualifies as `scientific work' (even if
> > you described it mainly as a didactic effort).  I am a bit puzzled
> > about the `may not be reproduced', though, since down-loading (which
> > clearly is allowed for this form of use) is also a form of
> > reproduction, after all.
> >
> > In my opinion, the Macsyma copyright and trademark notice you cite
> > applies only to the Macsyma program itself and not to the packages.
> >
> > As Stavros has already remarked, by `written for Macsyma' I only meant
> > that these files might contain certain syntactical constructs or refer
> > to certain features which are not available in Maxima.  Hence my
> > surprise that at least the one test case I tried worked without
> > further ado.
> >
> > I never used a commercial Macsyma, so I don't know where serious
> > compatibility issues are most likely to arise.  On the other hand, I
> > do have a (very good) book called `Macsyma Version 2' (by Stefan Braun
> > and Harald Häuser, Addison-Wesley 1995, in German) and, except for the
> > graphical user interface, I am not aware of Maxima lacking any major
> > feature they describe.  So I am rather optimistic about portability.
> >
> > Wolfgang
> >
> >
>