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Robert Dodier | 1 Sep 2005 04:36
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Re: Maxima 5.9.2 release branch tagged

On 8/31/05, Raymond Toy <raymond.toy <at> ericsson.com> wrote:
> 
> As discussed earlier, the maxima 5.9.2 release branch has been
> created.

ray, thanks a lot for carrying out this task.

> I believe Robert Dodier kindly volunteered to be the release manager
> so he gets to say what should and should not be in the 5.9.2 release.

my goal here is to get to a 5.9.2 release very soon.
i hope this is a goal for others as well.
if someone disagrees they'll let me know.

towards that end, i am inclined to view as essential
in maxima/src/ only those changes needed to fix issues 
raised by other changes since 5.9.1.  in particular there 
are a few known bugs related to upper/lower case and fresh-line.
these are the only issues that i believe are really 
necessary to fix before 5.9.2 release. other changes
in maxima/src/ can go on the main branch.

changes in maxima/share/ or maxima/doc/ can proceed
apace and these can go into the 5.9.2 release.
please continue committing to the main branch and i'll
apply the changes to the 5.9.2 branch.

if there are other issues, well, let's hear it.

all the best,
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Richard Fateman | 1 Sep 2005 23:13
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Reconsidering the GPL licensing of Maxima


Reconsidering the GPL (GNU Public License) licensing of Maxima,
and a proposal to put Maxima under a "library" style license.

1. To my surprise, DOE Macsyma itself is not restricted by GPL.

The official word on DOE Macsyma is contained in this link:
http://www.osti.gov/estsc/catalog-alphabetical.htm in which there are
2 entries for DOE-Macsyma.

Entry 1: this DOE Macsyma has "unlimited" distribution, for SUN
workstations, (This is apparently work by Jim O'Dell based on (my)
Berkeley Franz Lisp port, with additions sponsored by DOE.)

and Entry 2: this DOE Macsyma has "copy/unlimited" distribution for
PCs and many other systems, by Bill Schelter.

The conclusion, easy to see from the web page, is that a non-exclusive
copy could be taken out by anyone, and essentially anything could be
done with it. For example, a copy could be taken out of the DOE
library, modified in secret, and re-sold.  The transmission letter
from DOE to Bill was not a special permission, but was a confirmation
and restatement that Bill, has permission to do <whatever> to the
code, non-exclusively. Bill happened to ask if he could redistribute
under GPL, but those restrictions do not bind anyone else who takes
the same DOE Macsyma code out of the library.

2. Why Bill Schelter's alterations for DOE Macsyma that went
into DOE Macsyma are not restricted by GPL either.
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Robert Dodier | 2 Sep 2005 17:12
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residual bothcases code

hello all,

there remains some code related to the bothcases global variable,
which was made obsolete by case sensitivity.

the default value is true. bothcases: false$ does still have an
effect, namely to convert every symbol (user-defined and built-in alike)
to uppercase.

i am going to cut out the remaining instance of bothcases from src/,
share/, and doc/info/ unless i hear otherwise.

all the best,
robert

PS. for the record here are the instances of bothcases in src/ :

buildq.lisp:;; give it a property so it is known as special for bothcases
buildq.lisp:(setf (get '$splice '$bothcases) t)
lmdcls.lisp:  $beta_args_sum_to_integer $bftorat $bftrunc $bothcases $boxchar
mactex.lisp:;;;(import '(user::$bothcases user::lbp user::rbp user::nformat))
mactex.lisp:($bothcases t) ;; allow alpha and Alpha to be different
max_ext.lisp:;; make some externals for the bothcases stuff...
nparse.lisp:    (setq tem (if $bothcases (bothcase-implode tem)
(implode1 tem nil)))
nparse.lisp:(defvar $bothcases t)
nparse.lisp:    (or $bothcases  (setq c (fixnum-char-upcase c))))
suprv1.lisp:       (setq $debugmode nil $bothcases t
suprv1.lisp:;; If $BOTHCASES is T, lower case letters will not be
converted to upper case.
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Jaime E. Villate | 2 Sep 2005 17:34
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Case sensitivity in 5.9.1

Hi,
regarding case sensitivity, can somebody please help me?:

My students are using Maxima 5.9.1 and I've copied into their disks
plotdf.lisp, from share/contrib/ in the CVS repository.

That file defines function "plotdf", but Maxima only recognizes PLOTDF:

Maxima restarted.
(%i1) load(plotdf);

(%o1)          /usr/share/maxima/5.9.1/share/contrib/plotdf.lisp
(%i2) plotdf([y,-x]);

(%o2)                          plotdf([y, - x])
(%i3) PLOTDF([y,-x]);

(%o3)                                  0

How can I make plotdf() work in Maxima 5.9.1?

Cheers,
Jaime
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Albert Reiner | 2 Sep 2005 19:10
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Re: Reconsidering the GPL licensing of Maxima

[Richard Fateman <fateman <at> cs.berkeley.edu>, Thu, 01 Sep 2005 14:13:49 -0700]:
>                    Reconsidering the GPL (GNU Public License)
> licensing of Maxima,
> and a proposal to put Maxima under a "library" style license.
...

Hi,

as a mere user I have little interest in under what license Maxima is
distributed as long as it is sufficiently free for me to use it
without hassles.

Just two comments:

- 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.

  Not only do I find this rather distasteful and arbitrary, it also
  makes me wonder whether there is reason to believe that any court in
  this world would follow this line of argument.  (The purported
  relevance of the last mail quoted completely eludes me, BTW.)

- I don't think that the presentation of the consequences of the GPL
  is correct:

...
> * If there are sticking points where GPL is to be enforced because
> an author really wants to avoid his/her code running in a commercial
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C Y | 2 Sep 2005 20:32
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Re: Reconsidering the GPL licensing of Maxima

--- Albert Reiner <areiner <at> tph.tuwien.ac.at> wrote:

> Just two comments:
> 
> - 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.
> 
>   Not only do I find this rather distasteful and arbitrary, it also
>   makes me wonder whether there is reason to believe that any court
>   in this world would follow this line of argument.  (The purported
>   relevance of the last mail quoted completely eludes me, BTW.)

I raised this point off list, and it does concern me.  The significant
questions are:

a)  How many changes did Bill really make from DOE-Macsyma, or more
specifically how critical are those changes to our subsequent changes? 
I'm guessing the only way to know this is to request a copy from the
DOE, and find out.  If they are such that duplicating the relevant and
important changes is not too difficult or can be done as part of a
broad scale cleanup and modernization, then we can presumably start
with DOE-Macsyma, map contributions to Maxima from those willing to
relicense onto that code base (updating as advisable to make things
work), and proceed from that point as LLGPL (or whatever).  (Maybe we
will get the docs that originally came with DOE-Macsyma released as
well - drool.)  I can't help thinking that for industrial commercial
purposes, by today's standards, DOE-Macsyma needs a major overhaul to
be fixable and maintainable in a robust manner.  I get the impression
(Continue reading)

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Jaime E. Villate | 2 Sep 2005 22:41
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Case sensitivity in 5.9.1

Hi,
regarding case sensitivity, can somebody please help me?:

My students are using Maxima 5.9.1 and I've copied into their disks
plotdf.lisp, from share/contrib/ in the CVS repository.

That file defines function "plotdf", but Maxima only recognizes PLOTDF:

Maxima restarted.
(%i1) load(plotdf);

(%o1)          /usr/share/maxima/5.9.1/share/contrib/plotdf.lisp
(%i2) plotdf([y,-x]);

(%o2)                          plotdf([y, - x])
(%i3) PLOTDF([y,-x]);

(%o3)                                  0

How can I make plotdf() work in Maxima 5.9.1?

Cheers,
Jaime
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Robert Dodier | 3 Sep 2005 18:59
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Re: Case sensitivity in 5.9.1

hello jaime,

> My students are using Maxima 5.9.1 and I've copied into their disks
> plotdf.lisp, from share/contrib/ in the CVS repository.
> 
> That file defines function "plotdf", but Maxima only recognizes PLOTDF:

maybe if you do plotdf: PLOTDF$ then plotdf (...) will have 
the expected effect.

if there is only one copy of plotdf.lisp in question (i.e., the 
students do not have their own copies) you might change
(defun $plotdf (...)) to (defun |$PLOTDF| (...)).
(not sure if that helps -- try that only if plotdf: PLOTDF$ doesn't work.)

sorry i can't be more helpful,

robert dodier
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Robert Dodier | 4 Sep 2005 04:38
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newline problem to be fixed for 5.9.2

hello,

the one unresolved problem which i believe we should fix before releasing 5.9.2
is the placement of newlines. see bug report # 1217122 .
(http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=1217122&group_id=4933&atid=104933)
this topic seems to have been discussed most recently here:
http://www.math.utexas.edu/pipermail/maxima/2005/thread.html#9091

at present the problem is that there is a lack of newlines
after stuff is printed by format, mtell, merror, or other means.

i can tinker with throwing in (fresh-line) here or there, but i don't
have any deep understanding of how this is supposed to work.
however i am pretty sure that stuff like

(%i20) grind(foo+bar);
foo+bar$(%o20)                               done

is wrong.

if someone knows how to fix this, please, let's hear about it.

(i've fixed some minor bugs related to upper/lower case 
so this newline business is what remains.)

all the best,
robert dodier
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Robert Dodier | 4 Sep 2005 04:43
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Re: Reconsidering the GPL licensing of Maxima

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'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.

for what it's worth,
robert
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