Re: [Axiom-legal] RE: Aldor written in C?

[C Y]

--- "Page, Bill" <address@hidden> wrote:

> > By the way, is there any progress on the licensing side?
> > 
> 
> I am disappointed to report that I have had no reply from Steven Watt
> in spite of several emails and a telephone call over the last two
> months. :( I asked him specifically for a copy of the source license
> agreement. I am beginning to wonder whether such a document actually
> exists...

Hard to say.  Disappointing and a bit worrying to hear there has been
no progress.
 
> The terms of the license agreement to which we do have access at
> http://www.aldor.org is quite permissive and the intention seems
> largely compatible with GNU GPL since it requires full disclosure
> of any modifications of Aldor to the original authors, although no
> where is there a guarantee of access to the *full* source code -
> only the Aldor libraries.

Hmm.  Unfortunately, my understanding was that the current Aldor
distribution must be considered virtually useless from a source code
standpoint - that even if we take what is available and try to fill in
the rest, it's still more than we want to undertake.  Also, I'm very
much opposed to another new license - which to me seems like one more
complication we don't really want - unless absolutely necessary.  I
usually favor Modified BSD or *GPL licenses, and for Axiom I think
Modified BSD is fine - the more people using and building off of
correct mathematical cores, the better software in general gets.
Hopefully people will see the benefits of contributing back to the
core, and if not there is no reason we can't proceed on our own,
learning from other ideas if not their code. Axiom seems to truly make
ideas more important than code, and I think that is probably it's
single most impressive achievement.  It makes Axiom a potentially very
important project.  Unfortunately, this makes its licensing all the
more important.

> I am still convinced that Aldor is very important to the future of
> Axiom (and vice versa). I also believe that it would be completely
> unrealistic to think that we have the resources to developer a
> compiler similar to Aldor starting from the published specifications 
> alone, or even to make sufficient enhancements to SPAD to support 
> this additional functionality.

Given our limited resources, and that most of us aren't compiler or
computer language experts, I agree with that assessment. 
Unfortunately, that also makes clarification and speedy resolution of
the Aldor situation of much greater importance, since if we wish to
proceed with all future major work in Aldor rather than SPAD we need to
first obtain an unencumbered version of Aldor.

> So what next? Tim Daly has stated his opinion (I hope I am not
> exaggerating his words? :) that it is likely that the licensing
> agreement between aldor.org (Steven Watt) and the original developers
> (IBM and NAG) is not exclusive. 

Hmm.  Encouraging if true.

> In principle this would allow the
> Axiom Foundation to approach the original developers again for the
> rights to include the Aldor source code in the Axiom open source
> distribution.

Out of curosity, under what conditions would the Foundation deem that
the time has been reached to take this step?  Do we need a definite
answer of some kind from the current Aldor project?

> I do not have any indication from Steven Watt about
> this possibility, however if this is not with the full co-operation
> of aldor.org, then it would in effect establish a "fork" of the
> Aldor project specifically for Axiom.

If we do need to fork Aldor, I suggest calling the fork Orsus :-). 
>From what I can find from Latin word lists on the net, this in Latin
means to begin or start (esp. of speaking). And since we plan on lots
of literate documents... ;-).  Plus, in a sense the underlying language
of Axiom will be the beginning from which it proceeds.

> Forming a new Aldor licensing agreement with the original
> developers is likely to take some time unless we can find
> someone closely connected to these organizations who is willing
> to lead such an effort. (I am thus disqualified.)

I would urge that if no such person is immediately available, that this
process be undertaken sooner rather than later, in case it DOES wind up
taking a while.

> It is even possible that some of the Aldor developers who do
> already have access to the source code, might be in a position
> to simply establish such a fork of Aldor for Axiom by fiat on
> less there exists a clear license agreement or non-disclosure
> agreement to the contrary.

I would feel more comfortable if there were a clear document stating
that they WERE entitled to do this.  I don't know what the specific
legal points might be, but I'd much rather there be not even a faint
shadow of a doubt as to where matters stand before any serious work is
put into an Aldor fork.

> If the problem of obtaining a source
> license agreement for Aldor is simply due to the lack of time
> and/or desire of Steven Watt to administer the Aldor licensing
> formalities, then perhaps he might even look favorably on a
> proposal to fork Aldor or to incorporate Aldor and it's special
> licensing conditions into the current Axiom distribution.

I'm not quite clear as to the current situation - have we simply been
completely unable to establish contact with him?

> I think the time has come to consider this last alternative
> more seriously.

You mean Aldor WITH it's current situation and license?  I strongly
disagree there, for what it's worth - I myself would be extremely
reluctant to do any serious work in Aldor or any variation of it unless
it's both free in an open source sense and freely available.  Axiom is
too potentially important to allow it to get hung up somday because of
license issues - I don't think there is any possible advantage gained
by using Aldor that is worth the subsequent trouble such licensing
issues would cause.  Take a look at some of the GPL + export
restriction discussions in the Maxima archives for a sample of what can
happen (or for that matter some of the original discussions from the
open sourcing of Axiom if they're still around), and this could be
worse since it involves relying on closed source software.  If Axiom
comes to rely on a non-Free Aldor, in the long run that could quite
possibly do it in as a living project.

I think the better course would be if we can't establish contact and/or
terms with Aldor make the approach to IBM/NAG.  Tim went through the
whole licensing thing back in the beginning ad nausem (hence the
existance of this email list ;-) and one would hope that that
experience wouldn't have to be repeated again - maybe the same logic
that was sound for Axiom would be sound for an Aldor fork?  

Cheers,
CY


                
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