My assumption is that everything that was written by people
at MIT or elsewhere and that was put into the MIT-MC ("macsyma consortium")
computer as of the time the technology was sold to Symbolics,
(a) essentially belonged to DOE. That is, DOE had unlimited
rights to redistribute it or designate others to redistribute.
(b) DOE eventually did so. So everything (like odeaux) that
you can see the source code for and was written prior to 1982
is free to use (except perhaps in Cuba and North Korea?).
I suggest you not spend time worrying about whether the authors
who wrote this code 30 years ago wanted their code distributed
under GPL. Use it.
Nikolaos I. Ioakimidis wrote:
> Dear Cliff,
>
> Many most sincere thanks for your valuable intervention. In most
> (but not all) points, I agree with you. I am also grateful to you for
> the valuable information you have brought to my attention. Your
> help is greatly appreciated. You are so active in Maxima!
>
> The details of my reply follow the related points below in your
> message. Further comments by you are very welcome. Naturally,
> Jim will decide on what will be done and when as far as an
> official release is concerned, but now I wish to go on with my
> courses and any help is appreciated even if used locally in Patras
> before the final decision by Jim. This is my responsibility here and
> if I have permissions or I use GPL code, I can go on even before
> an official release of Maxima with this code in it.
>
> My comments . . .
>
> But please, be so kind to forgive me for any incorrect comments
> below. I am not an expert in Maxima. I can just apologize in
> advance for all incorrect comments.
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "C Y" <smustudent1 at yahoo>
> To: "Nikolaos I. Ioakimidis" <ioakimidis@otenet.gr>; <macrakis@alum.mit.edu>
> Cc: "Wolfgang Jenkner" <wjenkner@inode.at>; <maxima@mail.ma.utexas.edu>
> Sent: Saturday, February 08, 2003 8:54 PM
> Subject: Contributed code (Was Re: [Maxima] Teaching)
>
>
>
>>--- "Nikolaos I. Ioakimidis" <ioakimidis@otenet.gr> wrote:
>>
>>>In general, I completely agree with almost all of your comments
>>>below and your suggestion that a registry of Maxima-compatible
>>>software is perfect, I applaud it. It is also certain that we have to
>>>come into contact with the copyright owners of each package and,
>>>most probably, we will get a permission to distribute it with Maxima
>>>in a future release and after some stabilization. Jim has serious
>>>objections to be in a hurry in such matters (a reply by him to
>>>Cliff in a similar situation before few months).
>>
>>It is of course up to Jim, but Wolfgang's report that the code appeared
>>to function (at least on a basic level) without problems came as a
>>considerable surprise to me. Personally, I can't see what harm it
>>would do to contact the author(s) and see if they would be willing to
>>contribute their code. We can basically put it in share in whatever
>>directory seems appropriate and if it needs some minor tweaking that
>>can happen either when someone is motivated to do it or when we get to
>>it as part of a general overhaul of the share code. If it is already
>>at least partially functional that might be an indication it is worth
>>including. Again however, Jim is the final authority on such matters
>>and I will wait for his go ahead before contacting anyone.
>
>
> In general I agree, but I prefer this code to accompany Maxima in a
> different directory than SHARE, such as ADDITIONAL_SHARE_CODE
> or NOT_FULLY_TESTED_SHARE_CODE. This may be safer for the
> user of Maxima and will also reduce Jim's objections concerning bugs.
> Thanks to Wolfgang we can go on with the files Wolfgand suggestes in
> Maxima. Of course permissions by the authors of these and similar files
> are required.
>
> Many thanks also for your willingness to contact colleagues. This is a
> very valuable task.
>
>
>>>With my recent messages I have tried to bring the attention and
>>>the interest of the colleagues on this situation: that of enriching
>>>Maxima with new packages as soon as this will become possible.
>>>In case of failure, I may undertake myself the task to come into
>>>contact with the authors of the packages under question and
>>>additional packages perhaps reaching up to the point to write
>>>to the owner of the old Macsyma Inc. (I have forgotten his
>>>name. Could you remind it to me?)
>>
>>To the best of our knowledge, Andrew Topping is the one who has the
>>rights to the original Macsyma Inc. code. Dr. Fateman may know more,
>>but my total knowledge is pretty much from this email:
>>
>>http://www.math.utexas.edu/pipermail/maxima/2002/001200.html
>>
>>In the very beginning of the list there is a thread about this topic as
>>well:
>>
>>http://www.math.utexas.edu/pipermail/maxima/2001/000030.html
>>
>
>
> Many thanks for all of this information. The best would be that
> even the commercial Maxima code could be included in Maxima
> some day. (You are aware about Axiom!) This requires some effort.
> Perhaps Professor Fateman could help more. We will see.
>
>
>>>and try to get permissions
>>>for use and distribution at least to my students. Yet, I believe
>>>that this should happen gradually by the interested colleagues
>>>(such as you) and, perhaps, me too after the consent of Jim as
>>>far as the inclusion of such packages to Maxima is concerned.
>>
>>As I recall, his concern was that we had enough code to fix up already
>>without adding more headaches. Which is true, but I think if we can
>>make the share directories as much as possible an archive of all
>>available Maxima packages available under a free license, that will be
>>a good thing. At this stage we are making no claim that everything in
>>share is functional - some of it is very broken, actually. But again,
>>that's just one man's opinion.
>
>
> Yes, yes, you are right. I still prefer a second share directory such as
> that I proposed previously without bug fixes for the moment. Of course,
> perhaps Wolfgang could take care of the packages under question
> (after a permission of course). A CLEAR distinction between the tested
> share code (the old one in Maxima) and that not tested or tested a little
> (the new one in Maxima). That's my opinion.
>
>
>>>On the other hand (you read the Maxima mailing list) perhaps
>>>a point of precedence for me now is to bring back to Maxima
>>>files and commands already present in DOE-Maxima and
>>>described in detail in the DOE-Maxima Reference Manual
>>>of Mike and, probably, in the Maxima Referene Manual. This I
>>>try to do as you understand and it is a very simple task since many
>>>colleagues have the files available through the distributions of
>>>DOE Maxima in the past and what is needed is that these
>>>can be added in the distribution (in the Maxima language I
>>>mean). Such a simple task! (I do not know about copyright
>>>matters with respect to DOE-Maxima.)
>>
>>If I understand you correctly, you wish to locate older copies of
>>DOE-Maxima people have and incorporate code from those distributions
>>into this distribuiton?
>
>
> Yes! This is exactly what I mean. The DOE-Macsyma code, with the
> exception of bugs, has been stable since 1982. No changes, no additions,
> just bug fixes. This is my impression based on what I have read. I do
> not know any details, but you know what happened.
>
>
>>I would advise against doing that arbitrarily,
>>since our original code base is all we have explicit permission to
>>distribute under GPL. The thing to do would be to contact the original
>>authors, see if they still have the rights to the code, and if so see
>>if they would be willing to contribute it to the current effort.
>
>
> This is a point of disagreement, but I do not belong in the development
> team of Maxima, I do not decide, I am a simple user. My impression
> is that when DOE (rather a successor of DOE) gave the permission of
> the code to William F. Schelter, they essentially meant the whole code
> distributed by them (DOE-Macsyma) not with the exception of some files.
> But, to be on the safe side, we can come into contact with them and
> clarify that they did so, i.e. in my case, the permission included not only
> the ODEAUX.MAC file (already in Maxima), but the dependent files
> too. I wish to believe that the lack of inclusion of the dependent files in
> Maxima is just an omission and not an indication that these files have
> been exempted by DOE. Which is your opinion?
>
> On the other hand, for old code, mainly of 1970s, I doubt whether we
> could find the authors. This code may have been made in M.I.T. by
> persons not known to the computer algebra community you belong.
> Therefore, my opinion is to get an explanation from DOE, that they
> gave permission to William F. Schelter to set under GPL the whole
> of their code (i.e. the 1982 code plus the bug fixes) by M.I.T. they
> distributed in one way or the other. In my impression, this is the
> meaning of their letter to William F. Schelter, but we could confirm
> this meaning now. If they really did wish that the ODE command
> would be an exception (not included) in Maxima, they would not give
> a license for the ODEAUX.MAC file to be included in the distribution.
> This seems not to be reasonable. Does Professor Fateman or
> some other colleague knows the details?
>
>
>>The other way to do it would be to reimpliment the missing parts, which
>>is more work but safer.
>
>
> This is a difficult possibility. It's not a short code as far as ODEs are
> concerned. It's long. It's not an easy task to find somebody to undertake
> this task.
>
>
>>I've often thought that at some point we should put out a call on the
>>sci.math.symbolic group for any old macsyma pacakges people have
>>written and would be willing to contribute.
>
>
> This is a very good idea. As far as I am concerned I completely
> applaud it.
>
> In fact, now I tend to undertake seriously the task to also find
> code for Maxima, restricting of course to engineering applications
> of interest to me. This possible (even to me) with permissions of
> course. It's possible.
>
>
>>I don't know if 5.9.0 is the right point for this,
>
>
> Nothing can be added now to 5.9.0. In 5.9.1 perhaps. But we
> can use now any code available, test it a little and give it for
> distribution in 5.9.1 in a separate directory, not SHARE.
>
> Yet, I believe the best is that the authors themselves upload the
> code to the Home Page of Maxima at Souceforge with the
> appropriate GPL indications in the first lines. This would be
> more safe. This does not refer to the DOE-Macsyma code
> if missing. For this code I have suggested a clarification on the
> permission. Could you or somebody else undertake some of
> these tasks, please?
>
>
>>but it's worth keeping in mind that the
>>longer we wait the more likely it is people will have lost the old
>>code.
>
>
> No, it cannot be lost. It has been distributed to many sites
> (perhaps in about 200 licences). It is based on the standard 1982
> M.I.T. code ( large part of it, nt all) plus bug fixes. Professor
> Fateman and many other colleagues should have accessibility
> to this code.
>
>
>>We don't have to guarantee we will make it work or support it,
>>but just create an archive of code people can freely use and build off
>>of. What does the list think?
>
>
> As far as I am concerned I agree, I agree without hesitations, but
> in a separate directory of Maxima without a guarantee.
>
>
>>(And Jim, feel free to pin my ears back
>>on this one. Just wanted to float it out there.)
>>
>>CY
>
>
> Many sincere thanks Cliff for this message.
>
> I have written several messages these days trying to have
> Maxima improved at least on differential equations.
>
> I am grateful to all colleagues for their help and interventions.
> Many thanks!
>
> [But this time not to abandon the effort to enrich Maxima
> with available code under some legal kind of license. At least,
> at Sourceforge if not in distribution. Otherwise a part of
> the code could be lost. Incidentally, I know the name of a
> colleague with contribution to the commercial code and,
> perhaps, not member of this list. (In fact, I do not know the
> members). Perhaps, he could help, perhaps not. I doubt, I
> do not know.]
>
> Many sincere thanks and best regards again.
>
> Nikos
>
>
>
>