Nikolaos I. Ioakimidis wrote:
.....
> Finally, please, permit me to express my view about what had
> happened in the past with the University of Texas distribution
> by William F. Schelter (after an agreement with D.O.E. I assume,
> the responsible Department I mean ). Everybody had the right
> to download Maxima (or DOE-Macsyma, there is a confusion)
> from the University of Texas FTP server and after this action one
> had to pay D.O.E. before installing it (an amount of the order of
> 100 or 150 U.S. $, much less than that of the commercial
> Macsyma, perhaps less than that of DOE-Macsyma from
> D.O.E.) without this payment being accompanied by a password
> or something equivalent, but necessary for actually using Maxima.
I would guess that few if any people bothered to send DOE anything.
This payment originated as a fee to get a copy of the tape from DOE.
In 1982 they would actually send a magnetic tape of the source code.
Since DOE costs for the net download are zero, the justification
for the fee is mostly gone.
>
> Am I right in this view or wrong? After the official permission
> by D.O.E. to William F. Schelter to prepare derivative works
> (under COPYING1) the situation became much more mild
> and now nobody is obliged to pay D.O.E. for Maxima (after
> downloading) unless he wishes to have available DOE-
> Macsyma itself.
The distinction you make between Maxima and DOE-Macsyma is
negligible. DOE-Macsyma probably includes some worthless software
(a broken lisp "NIL" for VAX-VMS operating system, maybe also a
working Franz Lisp version, but for a now obsolete operating
system 2BSD or 3BSD VAX UNIX or Sun UNIX from 1982).
Schelter's Maxima was, initially, an attempt to make the
code run on TI Explorer (a lisp machine) running something really
close to Common Lisp.
The best way of dealing with this is, I think, to recognize
the reality: the code is out. Permission to copy is unnecessary.
To the extent that GPL represents a restriction on redistribution,
I think that is probably invalid also, in spite of anything DOE
says. If I want to take a copy of the 1982 code and SELL it, and
incorporate it into secret programs, the fact that someone 18 years
later slaps a GPL license on it is probably irrelevant.
I am not a lawyer, however.
RJF
Then he has to proceed to an official order
> and he will receive the DOE-Macsyma package after payment
> in advance.
>
> Could some colleague, please, confirm or deny my above view
> about the way of distribution of Maxima or DOE-Macsyma
> (I am not sure) by William F. Schelter before the permission
> to him by D.O.E. in October 1998 to distribute derivative
> works of DOE-Macyma under GPL (or another licence at his
> discretion) plus COPYING1? I am really curious on this point
> of the history of Maxima, which is not clarified very well in the
> Maxima Book and seems to be in some discrepancy with what
> I had read in Internet sources about Macsyma, DOE-Macsyma
> and Maxima distributions.
>
> Many sincere thanks in advance!
>
> Best regards from Patras,
>
> Nikos
>
>
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