The FAQ (http://maxima.sourceforge.net/faq/faq.html) states (Q 2.2)
The original Maxima Reference Manual by William Schelter is no longer
maintained. [...]
and http://maxima.sourceforge.net/docs.shtml says
[...] we recommend the updated [manual] that has been significantly
enhanced by Mike Clarkson.
The former assertion does not reflect the current state of CVS Maxima:
The reference manual has been updated several times and sometimes in
quite a substantial way (for example, R. Toy has documented there his
implementation of elliptic functions). Also, a substantial part of
the Maxima help system (the DESCRIBE command) relies on this manual.
No doubt any recommendation would be well-founded on the manual's own
merits but there remain certain obstacles: The (texinfo?) source of
the html files doesn't seem to be generally available and the
copyright notice on Clarkson's manual does not say that his work can
be freely used. As long as I intend to contribute to Schelter's
reference manual this uncertainty prevents me from even reading
Clarkson's manual (and maybe stealing some ideas, consciously or not).
So the FAQ begs the important question: Is it possible to merge the
texinfo sources of the two manuals under the GPL or GFDL?
Wolfgang