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

> > 1. The DOE-Maxima Reference Manual of Michael Clarkson
>
> Terminology questions:
>
> Is "Maxima" Identical to "DOE-Maxima" ?
> Or is it a parallel branch of development?

The system developed at MIT was called Macsyma (although the nicknames
MACSYM and MAXIMA were sometimes used since filenames were limited to
six uppercase-only characters in sixbit character code).

Symbolics licensed Macsyma from M.I.T. and registered "Macsyma" as a
trademark at some point (presumably with M.I.T.'s permission).

When Macsyma source ceased to be freely available, pressure was put on
M.I.T. (mostly by Fateman) to transfer the code which had been developed
largely with Department of Energy (DOE) funding to the DOE, which then
released it to others under certain conditions.

That codebase was called DOE Macsyma.  I don't know what legal rights
the DOE had to the *name* Macsyma as opposed to the codebase, but
presumably the non-commercial users of DOE Macsyma wanted to avoid any
legal wrangling around the name, and started using the name Maxima at
some point (but I don't know when that was).

So the short answer as I understand it is that Maxima is simply the most
recent name for the branch that started under the name DOE Macsyma.

      -s