[Axiom-legal] Re: [Axiom-developer] RE: Literate documentation

[C Y]

--- Ralf Hemmecke <address@hidden> wrote:

> > I am curious about a small, new lisp editor called Able
> > http://phil.nullable.eu/ and whether it could be taught to
> > do what we need for Axiom.  Unfortunately it's GPL which can be
> > tricky in Lisp...
> 
> I don't know why you fear GPL all the time.

I'll respond to this part on legal... It's not that I fear it so much
as I want to avoid any excuse to spend time pondering license issues. 
GPL makes some definitions that don't map especially well to Lisp IIRC,
but I don't recall the details at the moment.  I just like the Modified
BSD for simplicity - no arguments with anybody :-).

> Suppose somebody combines Axiom with GPL code so that the Axiom
> license has to become GPL (not a bad idea anyway). What would that 
> change for you?

Nothing particularly.

> Don't you then have access to the sources anymore, can't you 
> redistribute it. What is the problem? The problem would only be for 
> those people who want to earn money with Axiom. Our goal is to keep 
> Axiom free and openly accessible. I don't see why GPL would
> contradict that.

I think the main concern would be that discouraging people from
developing for Axiom because of concern that they must release their
code under the GPL is undesriable.  There are some questions as to
whether any user code based on a GPL lisp environment is also required
to be GPL, since lisp code doesn't produce "stand alone" binaries in
the sense that the gcc compiler suite does.  (And IIRC even GCC has
some special exceptions for parts of their compiler.)  I don't know if
those issues would be a problem for Axiom/SPAD/Aldor, but the question
would probably come up.  With Modified BSD it's a moot point.

I don't have the references to the issue handy, but if you're
interested I can try to dig them up.

> I know that mail should not live in axiom-developer, so if somebody 
> feels need to reply just remove the developer mailing list.

I'll reply to the other question on the dev list.

Cheers,
CY


       
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