Reconsidering the GPL licensing of Maxima

Jay Belanger wrote:

> Richard Fateman  writes:

> 
> 
>>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.
> 
> 
(Jay...)

> It seems to me that he did.
> The only indication of copyright in the old sources is the GPL, and
> the included spec file indicates it's GPLed.

I don't know what sources you checked, but here's my reading..

I looked at the old source for Maxima-5.2a-beta which is in the
file
http://www.ma.utexas.edu/users/wfs/pub/maxima/maxima-5.2a-beta.tgz
This version is significant because it is dated 16-September-1998.

That is, it is the last version just before Bill got a letter (3 weeks
later) from the DOE, on 6-October-1998.  In that version 5.2a-beta,
there is no mention of GPL.

I think it reflects Bill's own view of the code ownership.
In the file doc/contrib he
acknowledges people for testing code under several lisps,
including 2 commercial ones. Note that these files were downloaded
by all the testers; no security. (Bill did spray his own copyright
notice on all the files, even if he made no other changes.)

If Bill had meant for his own code to be "protected" by GPL, he
wrote all that code from about 1984 to 1998 and never mentioned
it.

> Since the GPL provides much fewer restrictions than some of the other
> stuff he wrote himself, I don't see why this point would be argued.

Actually, I don't see GPL to be consistent with Bill's intentions, and
believe the insertion of GPL in later versions (post-DOE-letter) to be his
mistaken view that he was respecting the DOE perspective (see COPYING
and COPYING1).  Really the DOE perspective was: do whatever you want,
including commercialization.  Bill was not a lawyer.


> The possibilities offered here seem to be either continue with the GPL
> or remove all of Bill Schelter's post-DOE work (and perhaps much of
> what depends on it).

   Finally, it seems silly to think that he worked
> to get the DOE source GPLed, but didn't add his later contributions.

As I said, I think he believed he was being respectful to the DOE.

Several people have suggested that Bill's heirs inherited his copyright,
and could say what they would like to do with material specifically
authored and copyrighted by Bill.

I've started making an inquiry along
these lines.  I do think there is a consensus in the community
about what makes scientific sense, and in that case, that
consensus view should made available to his heirs.

RJF

> 
> Jay
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Maxima mailing list
> Maxima@math.utexas.edu
> http://www.math.utexas.edu/mailman/listinfo/maxima