Differences between Maxima and Macsyma and GPL vs. commercial version

Richard,

Hello! I hope all is well with you.
Can I ask you a few questions about Maxima?

A few months ago I talked with you about fanciful
notions of making a MockMMA type program.  I'm starting
to think it would be better to just learn to love
Maxima and forget about Mathematica.

I am utterly amazed at the history of Macsyma/Maxima.
The fact that it is written in Common Lisp
and GPL'd is truly astounding to me.

Here are my questions if you don't mind....

(1) What is difference between Macsyma and Maxima??
I think Maxima is a GPL'd port to Common Lisp that
competes with other forks of the 30+ year old code right?

And, you mentioned that the commercial version of Maxima
added some extras.

What is are most valuable things
*missing* from the GPL'd version of Maxima?
Does the open source version keep up pretty much?

In a nutshell, I'm trying to get a feel for how good
the GPL'd version of Maxima is relative to the commercial
cousins and competitors in the forest.

(2) If Macsyma/Maxima is/was the oldest and greatest,
then how come Mathematica gets all the press and attention?
Is this another case of slick GUIs and marketing winning
over quality like M$ Windows vs. Linux???

Depending on how you answer (1), I believe we have a serious
open source product here that should get more attention.

We don't want youngsters like me naively thinking Mathematica
is the one and only choice for symbolic stuff anymore.

I value your feedback.

Sincerely,

Chris




-- 
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Dr. Christian Seberino
SPAWAR Systems Center San Diego
Code 2872
49258 Mills Street, Room 158
San Diego, CA 92152-5385
U.S.A.

Phone: (619) 553-9973
Fax:   (619) 553-6521
Email: seberino@spawar.navy.mil
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