How to avoid ^- in maxima output? (Przemek Klosowski)

The plugin does not bundle anything. It just expects Maxima to be installed
on the system and runs it via socket. For the user, it would be more
convenient, if some portable core Maxima was included in the SMath
distribution, but in that case, I guess, license issues might arise.

Just to be precise: SMath is free (can be used free of charge including
commercial application), but it's core is not open source. Insofar, the
effort for the plugin is under a permanent danger of SMath and the
supporting website including the SVN server for user contributions being
discontinued. 

However, the author (Andrey Ivashov) has once stated that he shall disclose
the sources, should he not be able to continue the development. Relying on
this is matter of belief. 

Given the advantages of the two-dimensional format for documenting and
performing engineering calculations, we decided to give it a try. An
alternative would be to create a dedicated GUI for Maxima, but that would be
beyond our ressources (just me and Kay Graubman at the Brandenburg
University of Applied Sciences).

> 
> Since Maxima is licensed under GPLv2, wouldn't that create a bundling that
> triggers GPL restrictions on derived products? Historically, FSF and other
GPL
> copyright owners frowned on combining their products with non-Free
software.