FAQS/follow-up on solving a set of symbolic equations

> ---  "Richard Fateman" <fateman@cs.berkeley.edu> wrote:

> I wonder if we could get the rights to work on documentation
> starting from
> the Macsyma Inc documentation.  (Separate from the
> rights to the program.)  So far, no indication of
> this being possible.

Dear Richard,
Dear Colleagues,

This would be a very interesting idea, but it requires some
kind of agreement with the present owner of Macsyma Inc.
whose name (I think, I am not sure, and address too) is 
well known.

I am almost sure Jim's recommendation would be no to
any such attempt. If he could be persuaded for a yes, my
suggestion would be that this attempt (of an agreement 
about the code and/or the documentation) could be made
through Richard Petti, whose (past) views I tend to find now
more or less mild. In any case, I am almost sure that any 
such attempt would presently have a negative outcome without
a payment to the new owner of Macsyma Inc. for the rights on
the documentation and/or the code of Macsyma Inc. 

I completely agree with you that so far there is no indication
that we could get any rights (for the documentation or the code)
without a payment-based agreement. (The situation could have
been completely different with Richard Petti himself as the owner
as you remember when he was the owner of Macsyma Inc., but,
unfortunately, it had not.)

Another negative point is that the enhancements in the
commercial Macsyma make it slightly different from Maxima.
Therefore, the commercial Macsyma documentation would
require sufficient editing and tests to be adapted to Maxima
5.9.0 even in the case of a permission to use it.

Therefore, presently, perhaps Jim's so negative views are the
most wise ones for the whole Maxima project.

Naturally, the ideal would be that some government or 
non-commercial organization (such as ACM, AMS or a
University Consortium) could pay so that the code and
the documentation of the commercial Macsyma could become
free to anybody. I am almost sure that this is not easily possible 
although (in a different situation I must confess) it has become
possible with the classical Computer Modern fonts in their 
PostScript (not bitmap) form that several of us use. (Since 
few years these fonts are free and distributed from AMS.)

These are my present views. I must apologize to you and
to any colleague who disagrees with the above views of mine,
but the idea is to discuss your interesting suggestion aiming
to the improvement of Maxima and its present documentation.

Best regards from Patras,

Nikos