Reconsidering the GPL licensing of Maxima

[Richard Fateman , Thu, 01 Sep 2005 14:13:49 -0700]:
>                    Reconsidering the GPL (GNU Public License)
> licensing of Maxima,
> and a proposal to put Maxima under a "library" style license.
...

Hi,

as a mere user I have little interest in under what license Maxima is
distributed as long as it is sufficiently free for me to use it
without hassles.

Just two comments:

- Much of the proposal revolves around the possibility of making a
  case that Bill Schelter didn't understand the license he chose, and
  implying that he would have accepted any other of the licenses
  mentioned just as well.

  Not only do I find this rather distasteful and arbitrary, it also
  makes me wonder whether there is reason to believe that any court in
  this world would follow this line of argument.  (The purported
  relevance of the last mail quoted completely eludes me, BTW.)

- I don't think that the presentation of the consequences of the GPL
  is correct:

...
> * If there are sticking points where GPL is to be enforced because
> an author really wants to avoid his/her code running in a commercial
> lisp or a commercial front end or with a commercial numerical library, a
...

  As far as I understand, GPL is not in the least concerned with
  *running* a program, but with the question of its *distribution*.
  Certainly, Maxima is routinely run in commercial lisps now.

Regards,

Albert.