Reconsidering the GPL licensing of Maxima

Dear all,

I know the issue of choosing a licence for software is a difficult
one, and that the GPL has certain clauses designed to restrict how the
*source code* is incorporated into other projects, (open or closed
source).

I have two points to add.

(1) I think there is a place for a good general purpose CAS available
freely to the academic community.  The GPL is designed to protect the
freedom we have to do this.  Currently I see this CAS as Maxima.  For a
commercial application one could always team up with an existing
commercial CAS....

(2) A good API for maxima would allow the functionality of Maxima to be
included into other applications without using the source code of maxima
in that project.   I am no legal expert, but commercial applications sit
happily on top of, for example, Linux without the need to change the
source code of Linux itself.   

A good API would of course also help other GPL projects.

Would it be worth really working on the Maxima server together with
documentation on how to interface with Maxima etc?  Can anyone help with
this? 

Have I missed the point somewhere?  If so, I'm sorry.

Regards
Chris