The apple license looks ok to me.
I have not looked at the extent
to which Bill Schelter took stuff from
DOE Macsyma vs. rewrote it. My expectation
is that, except for perhaps the plotting
or other material (Todd Coxeter?) he wrote
himself, the major contribution was in placing
it in some html-ish or texinfo or .... form.
This probably does not allow a new copyright or
GPL stuff.
While we are talking about documentation, the
tutorial has changed C1 to %I1, [something that
I as a touch typist do not like at all, so I
can change it back... ] but only in the figures.
The text still has C1 D1 etc.
RJF
Robert Dodier wrote:
>On 12/15/05, Richard Fateman wrote:
>
>
>
>>I think it would be counterproductive to assume
>>that material is licensed under GPL (there is
>>a version for documents, too), or to assert that
>>future contributions are so licensed.
>>
>>
>
>About the reference manual, my point is that since the
>version we are now working on was part of the bundle
>release by William Schelter under the terms of the GPL,
>the manual is also GPL. We couldn't change that if
>we wanted to.
>
>
>
>>I think that all the material I have written in
>>whatever tutorial material there is
>>
>>1. I hold the copyright to.
>>2. I give permission to other people to use.
>>
>>I do not know what the creative commons etc
>>licenses say. I think that material contributed to
>>a common on-line site might best be allowed as
>>public domain, or if someone wants to start a
>>Maxima Foundation, with board etc. so that something
>>can own something, that might be better. Or worse.
>>
>>Some subsequent modifications of my written work
>>do not constitute changes I like, but that's OK,
>>if someone else claims authorship of something broken.
>>Just don't take my words, change them, and then say
>>I said them.
>>
>>
>
>I'm not seeing a pressing reason to assign copyrights
>to a third party such as a Maxima Foundation.
>I'd rather see authors retain their copyrights.
>The potential benefit of copyright assignment is that
>it might be necessary (depends on who you listen to)
>to round up all copyright holders to file a lawsuit against
>someone who breaks the license terms, and that's easier
>if there's a single copyright holder.
>The downside is that copyright assignment discourages
>authors, since they truly don't own their work anymore.
>
>(So long as author retain their copyrights, they are free
>to license their works in different ways to different parties
>as they see fit.)
>
>
>
>>I do not expect that Joel Moses will answer any
>>email on this topic, since he has not answered any similar
>>mail in the past 25 years.
>>
>>
>
>We don't need to contact the original authors of the
>reference manual because the manual is covered
>under the blanket statement made by DOE to Schelter,
>and Schelter's releasing all of Maxima under GPL.
>It's the later stuff that we need to reconsider.
>
>Hope this helps,
>Robert
>