--- Stavros Macrakis <stavros.macrakis@verizon.net> wrote:
> > On a related, and possibly more promising note, are there any
> > employees still on the net who could give us a summary of
> > what they had to do? I don't know what they can and can't
> > say, but presumably they could at least sketch the problem spots.
>
> Yes, there are employees on the net, and some of them are sympathetic
> to Maxima, but (a) they are bound by non-disclosure agreements;
Nuts. I was afraid that would be the case.
> (b) I don't see what they could say that could help us besides the
> code itself;
Maybe say something like "Oh, that problem - you might poke around in
<filename>.lisp" or "<idea's> weak implimentation causes problems".
But you're right, that might or might not be of serious help, and if
they're under NDAs anyway I don't blame them for not risking it.
> (c) the code itself belongs to Macsyma/Symbolics;
Yep.
> (d) I have asked them before for any code that does *not* belong to
> Macsyma/Symbolics (e.g. code contributed by outside people), and have
> not gotten anything back.
Probably they don't want to mess with proving what is and isn't
Symbolics code. That can get sticky.
> Rumor has it that some ex-employees would be willing to slip us a
> copy of the commercial code under the table, but it would be legally
> risky for any of us to even *see* that code, much less use it.
I agree. Much as I appreciate the sentiment, we cannot look at that
code unless it has become open source. Maybe someday something will
change, but for now we're working with what we've got. I do hope they
hang on to their copies though - I still get nervous thinking about a
bunch of aging, non-used servers being the only repository for the
code.
CY
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