Reconsidering the GPL licensing of Maxima

Robert Dodier wrote:

> hello,
> 
> 
>>- 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.
> 
> 
> i'm in agreement with albert's comments on this point.
> 
> essentially we need to be careful to avoid decisions based
> on wishful thinking. the status of bill schelter's contributions
> is not something we can change by fiat.

I think this that exploring this may be possible with Bill's heirs
but maybe not.  Another is to see just what Bill changed in DOE Macsyma.
Another is to actually see what Bill's letter to DOE said, if anything,
about the changes and additions he made to the code.

Another is to observe his other code, posted similarly, which he wrote
himself and did not try to "negotiate terms" with DOE.  For example,
NetMath.

In particular, while he asked DOE for permission to release
THEIR code (actually MIT's, his, mine, ...) under GPL, he
didn't say that his additional code was also restricted by GPL.

Let's look at some of the instructions for the code posted in the
same directory that Bill wrote and DOE did not own.

His instructions for netmath
under... www/ma/utexas.edu/users/wfs/netmath/obtaining.html   include


"
  Under Linux,Unix etc if you have wish installed, you may just download  nethmath.tcl and then copy 
it to somewhere in your path for eg. /usr/local/bin/netmath . If your wish is called wish8.xx or 
some such name, then you will need to either make a link to the name wish, or edit the third line of 
the file netmath.tcl, indicating the actual name of your 'wish' shell. Note  when ftp downloading 
using netscape, under some operating systems, it may be necessary to hold the Shift key down while 
clicking on the item you wish to download. Otherwise it may try to insert it directly in the 
browser, or run it or some such thing, and not give you the choice of saving it to a file. If you 
dont have wish then go to Scriptics for the latest version.
"
So when he outright owned the code, he seemed to give it away. He also marked some
files (c) all right reserved,  which is consistent.  (Reserving the right to give
it away is what I sometimes do myself).

On the start-up screen, which you can preview by visiting

http://www.ma.utexas.edu/users/wfs/netmath/netmath.html

there is this note..

"NetMath was written by William Schelter, and may be redistributed freely if no modifications are 
made. "

There is no mention of GPL with NetMath.
  Admittedly the "no modifications" is a something of a show-stopper if
the author is no longer able to accept bug reports etc.

In case you wonder about what this NetMath program is, it is part of the Maxima program you used
if you downloaded maxima from UT Austin... it is Bill's front end for Maxima, but also Pari, and
Gap, and is also a simple browser, written in Tcl.

Bill did not require that you run NetMath in a Tcl system that was open source,
and as you see above, suggests you use one from Scriptics. (As I recall,
the author of Tcl, John Ousterhout, and Richard Stallman, are at polar opposites
see   http://www.vanderburg.org/OldPages/Tcl/war2/0000.html
for RMS's statement about why he decided to BAN Tcl from Gnu software.
The animosity is, or was, not merely theoretical.)

(Oddly enough, for this crowd, a rough synopsis of RMS's treatise might be
"Tcl is not Lisp. Lisp is the true tongue. Two tongues makes more work.")

Bill Schelter was not so doctrinaire, and used Tcl and Lisp and C and...
as he saw fit.



> i'm not much worried about it, though. if indeed there is
> corporate interest, there will probably be corporate lawyers
> involved, and therefore, i believe, a careful evaluation of
> the legal issues.

Maybe.  Money paid to lawyers won't improve maxima though.
RJF
> 
> for what it's worth,
> robert
> 
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