On Tue, 13 May 2003 michel.lavaud@univ-orleans.fr wrote:
> Hello Richard,
> > I am not a lawyer, but it seems to me
> > (a) DOE has no interest any more in this program.
> > (b) They are unlikely to take legal action against
> > someone who "distributes" something that is freely
> > available, and has been for several years prior to
> > Bill Schelter's death.
>
> Great, I supposed also, this is why I suggested several months ago that
> this file was obsolete.
>
> > (c) Whether it is appropriate to continue to
> > post pointless messages is unclear to me.
>
> Please note that the original installer for Windows by Bill Schelter
> displayed only the GPL, contrary to the new version. The one I posted just
> goes back to what Bill did, and adds optionally on-line help in French. It
> is just an additional version, so that Windows users can use whichever
> installer they want, and everybody be happy :-).
The problem I see is not just the fact that the COPYING1 message is
being displayed or not, but its mere presence in the distribution.
Either
1) You estimate that this whole discussion is "pointless" since
"DOE has no interest any more in this program". In that case,
I do not understand why you object to removing the COPYING1 file.
2) You do feel a necessity to keep the COPYING1 file. In that case,
the terms for distributing Maxima do not seem to be compatible
with the terms in the GPL license, so you might have to solve
that problem.
In any case, the present situation does not seem suitable and
misleading for potential contributors. Also, potential problems are
not reduced to a few isolated files, which could easily be replaced,
but to the whole project. So it does not seem "pointless" to me to
clarify this situation once and for all.