Bill (cc: probably too many people), Many thanks for clarifying and correcting many of my misconceptions below. You clearly know a lot more about what's really going on with Aldor. I do, of course, hope very much that it is open sourced. Also, thanks in particular for clearing up my misconception about NAG being for profit.
You're right, MySQL and Qt are examples that do support Emil's argument; just in a different way than I had original thought. Again, thanks for clarifying all this -- I was suspicious there was something wrong with my email before. -- William On 8/4/07, Bill Page <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On 8/4/07, William Stein wrote: > > > > (This is sort of the middle of a discussion that ties in with another > > discussion on sage-devel, so I've cc'd sage-devel...) > > > > On 8/4/07, Emil Volcheck <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > William, David, > > > > > > I see this development as an evolutionary process. NAG is unwilling > > > at this time to make Aldor open source in an OSI-compatible way, but > > > there's the possibility of NAG changing their mind. > > > > There is an important meeting about Aldor that is scheduled for later > this month. See > http://www.aldor.org > > You can be sure that the subject of the license will be discussed > there. I would like to urge anyone with an interest in Aldor and a > strong opinion about Aldor licensing to attend. > > > I hope so, though I'm dubious. They might not want to open source the code > > because they want to keep open the option of licensing the code (for profit) > > for commercial use. If they make the code OSI-approved, they think (probably > > correctly) that their commercial options for that same code are greatly > > limited, > > which directly conflicts with their interests as a company. > > > > Note: "NAG is a not-for-profit company limited by guarantee." See: > http://www.nag.co.uk/about_nag.asp > > Stephen Watt was the primary developer of Aldor in the ScratchPad > (Axiom) project at IBM. Stephen now represents aldor.org - the none > profit organization that has been distributing the free binary version > of Aldor for several years and is about to also obtain the rights to > distribute the source code of Aldor from NAG). He told us during the > meeting at ISSAC that to the best of his knowledge NAG did not have > any intentions of commercializing Aldor. (Note: Stephen was *not* > officially representing the position of NAG but merely speaking based > on his discussions with them.) The purpose of the non-commerial use > clause in the APL2 license is apparently intended to protect NAG from > claims arising from the previous ownership of Aldor (IBM) in case > someone else actually finds a way to make money by incorporating Aldor > in their products. One such company that would be in a position to do > that is MapleSoft however they have not announced anything in this > regard. In particular Stephen said that: "NAG did not wish to look > stupid if someone else succeeds in commercializing Adlor where they > failed." > > > > > It is probably better than Mathematica. However, I personally would > > not even look at Aldor, because if I read the source code of Aldor, > > then implement the same thing in an open source program (e.g., SAGE), > > I will be violating the license agreement for Aldor (since SAGE can be > > used commercially, which is allowed by the GPL). Reading Aldor's source > > and writing something based on it is creating a derivative work. > > In a sense, the situation with Aldor will be not much different than > > the current situation with Maple, where much of the source of functions > > can be inspected, but only under a very restrictive license. > > > > I think it would be a good idea to ask NAG for a clarification on this > issue of "derivative works" based on access to Aldor source code. It > is not immediately clear to me that NAG intends this to be a > consequence of the non-commerical use clause in the new license. > > Stephen Watt told us that NAG favors a license based on the modified > BSD and was specifically against the GPL because of it is a "viral" > license. Apparently they object to the fact that any software that > incorporates GPL'd code must be licensed under GPL. It sounds like > this is more of a philosophical conflict than a commercial one. > > > > There are some very successful projects that have publicly available > > > source with noncommercial restrictions. For instance, MySQL and Qt > > > (the library underlying KDE) are both extremely successful! > > > > Unfortunately you're examples actually rebut your point, since > > both your examples are wrong -- MySQL and Qt are > > licensed under an OSI approved license without a "noncommercial > > restriction". Qt initially had such a restriction long ago, which is > > *precisely* what led to the Gnome project, but the issues were resolved > > a few years ago when Qt was GPL'd. Similarly MySQL is also GPL'd. > > > > The GPL is *not* a "noncommercial restriction". > > > > I think the fact that these licenses changed from being non-compatible > with GPL to GPL supports the idea that NAG might be convinced to > change their mind about the non-commercial clause (i.e. make Aldor > available modified BSD) but I am not so confident about the prospects > for GPL. > > > MySQL and Qt do also license there code under a completely different > > non-GPL license which they sell to people who want to include > > Qt or MySQL in closed source software. For example, I'm > > writing this email in Parallels Virtual Machine on a mac, which > > uses the non-GPL commercial version of the Qt library for its GUI. > > > > This option was apparently considered by NAG but rejected because > unlike MySQL AB, NAG does not intend to offer any sort of commercial > support for Aldor. > > > > > > On Sat, Aug 04, 2007 at 04:29:05PM -0700, William Stein wrote: > > > > On 8/4/07, David Joyner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > > Based on what I've read on the axiom developers list, > > > > > I think because of NAG's (very unfortunate, IMHO) decision, > > > > > Axiom (and FriCAS) will now be moving away from Aldor. > > So far as I know, the primary developer of FriCAS (Waldek) has not > made any specific statements about Aldor however I know there are > people who use FriCAS who have installed the interface to the binary > version of Aldor so that they can use it with FriCAS. Similarly, there > is an interface for Aldor that is part of the Axiom project and many > people already use Aldor this way. So I do not think it is accurate to > say that they are "moving away from Aldor". What is true however is > that because of the announcement of the new license for Aldor source > code, both projects have a renewed incentive to continue the > development of the old Spad compiler. > > > > > > Therefore, I think it will be a waste of time for SAGE to distribute > > > > > Aldor. NAG lead people on (or let people hope) that Aldor would be > > > > > open source. I predict Aldor will, thanks to NAG, slowly die. > > > > > > > I don't think this statement is not accurate. To the best of my > knowledge NAG did not "lead people on" about Aldor. They (specifically > Mike Dewar) was quite clear about the desire for a license with an > non-commercial use clause as much as two years ago. But many people > have hoped for a more open license what would be compatible with > Axiom. > > > > > > > > > Just to add agreement to that, I have no interest in distributing > > > > any non-open source code, as defined by the Open Source Initiative. > > > > David's probably right about the future of Aldor... > > > > > > > > > I think such conclusions are clearly premature. > > > > > > > Emil Volcheck wrote: > > > I'm optimistic about the future of Aldor, because making the > > > source public ensures that it can't be killed by anyone through > > > neglect. > > > > > I agree. > > Regards, > Bill Page. > > > > -- William Stein Associate Professor of Mathematics University of Washington http://www.williamstein.org --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ To post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URLs: http://sage.scipy.org/sage/ and http://modular.math.washington.edu/sage/ -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
