[OT] Re: [Axiom-legal] Licensing Aldor (was: GPL vs. modified BSD)

[Frederic Lehobey]

Hi Bill,

I believe I am starting to be slightly off-topic for axiom-legal with
this message, so I think it will be my last contribution to this
thread.

On Tue, Nov 21, 2006 at 11:54:58AM -0500, Bill Page wrote:
> On November 21, 2006 10:10 AM Frederic Lehobey wrote:
> > On Tue, Nov 21, 2006 at 09:19:43AM -0500, Bill Page wrote:

> about the compiler. You could fix bugs in the compiler for your own
> use. Only (apparently) you cannot re-distribute it to others. Although

Hence others cannot fix bugs for me and I cannot fix them for
others. Seems very far from free software to me and above all far from
scientific research.

> > See how much time you are wasting with non-free Aldor.

> I believe I would have to waste much more time with free SPAD.

Time spent in a free sofware project is never wasted (most of the
time) as long as you have other people using it.

> > Have you used Aldor at that time?
> 
> Yes in 1999 I used the Aldor compiler that was part of the Windows
> version of Axiom that was distributed by NAG. However I only had a
> copy of the promotional Cdrom which contained a time-limited license
> manager. I was comparing it to Maple which I already knew fairly well.
> I nearly purchased Axiom at that time from NAG but compared to Maple
> Axiom seemed too slow. (On common hardware available today and the

Yes at that time it was after Axiom moved from the (faster) AKCL
(because of is GPL licence) to the other Lisp that allowed porting to
Windows. This move from one Lisp to an other caused Axiom to be more
than twice as slow as it was before (even worse in some
operations). This slowness was the cause of the (dirty) workarounds in
the (old) compiler that caused the (several) breakages I experienced.

Most of the efforts of NAG at that time were on porting Axiom to
Windows (with more work on the interface). So my experience as a Unix
user (as were most of the Axiom users in France at that time) of Axiom
was:

  * a slower compiler (twice as slow as a few months before) for
bytecode compiling
  * development effort all focused on Windows (and Aldor)
  * a compiler subtly (and secretly) broken (it took me some time to
figure out what was actually happening).

And you wonder how the French Axiom community was killed? Fortunately,
this turn of events killed (old) Axiom as a commercial product and NAG
made a great contribution to free software by freeing Axiom (thanks to
Tim and other people involved).

Funnily, one of the first patches of the new free Axiom was to put
back GCL as compiler. But it was several years later...

> > I have been waiting from 1995 to 1999 for Aldor to become usable
> > for research which it has never achieved (and by far).
> 
> I think you just missed the time.

And the libraries (I should have written... or rewritten as did late
Manuel bronstein), and the debbuging, and... Sorry, I am ready to do
this for any free project, but not for a non-free project with an even
more unclear roadmap.

> > Aldor might be a funny pet project (as could be Mathemagix or SAGE)
> > that could grow into something interesting (as is SAGE today).
> 
> Aldor was packaged commercially with Axiom by NAG. I do not think
> it is accurate to describe it as a "pet project".

And so what? Aldor has been announced in the symbolic community since
1995. Its technical (and licensing) choices and merits have been much
discussed and challenged. I know of at least two projects that wanted
to design and achieve the same goals as Aldor in a more proper way (to
their eyes):

  * Mathemagix (Joris van der Hoeven)
  * Focal (Renaud Rioboo et al.)

(Those people come from the -- old -- Axiom community.)

Nowadays, SAGE seems to be the closer to achieve the same goals as
Mathemagix (and Aldor) but with very different technical choices.

> > But as it is not free software, I DO NOT CARE (and I deeply regret
> > it is favoured instead of Axiom old compiler in the Axiom community).
> > It is now too late for Aldor. It has missed its time frame and
> > opportunity (now filled by SAGE).
> 
> Maybe. As you know I am also very interested in SAGE. I wrote
> an interface for Axiom in SAGE. SAGE uses Python as the main
> development language and that has some big advantages as well as
> a few drawbacks. I am concerned however that the SAGE developers
> are not learning as much from past experience as they should. As
> a result they are re-inventing some wheels (despite their motto)
> and repeating some of the same mistakes. If they had open access

I completely agree with you on this (and appreciate the work you are
doing there).

> to Aldor I think it might be possible to influence some of their
> design choices.

I completely disagree. Aldor design (it is already publicly available)
might be interesting as food for thought. Aldor as a compiler is
closer to what should not be done. So I am not starving from it. (And
I do not think people with Python background will be...)

> Still, I think SAGE is an exciting project and the AXIOM project
> should plan to work with them. I agree that SAGE sets a good
> example by insisting that every part of SAGE is open source.

So do I. I would not disagree Axiom should try to keep Aldor
compatibility (when possible) but we should NEVER dwell on or wait for
it.

> No, there are some Axiom people who are not waiting for Aldor.

Fortunately. The fact it is free software matters here.

> > Many "failed" projects during their commercial life turn into
> > free software (this is what occurred to Axiom). Maybe Aldor is
> > not failed enough to become free software (but, ironically, I
> > believe you actually never had so much chance to have Aldor
> > finally released as free software).

> You mean you do not believe the current owners of Aldor that
> they want to make in free?

I do not read in their minds. I simply check the facts. It reminds me
of an other project: Scilab (of INRIA) which is constantly claimed to
be free software (which it is not). I bet it is a strategic choice of
INRIA (and that it will never be free). I would not be surprised for
Aldor to do the same, so I do not hold my breath (actually, it is what
it is already doing).

> > I am actually sad we have not driven enough lisp gurus to fix
> > the compiler. But (rewriting a compiler from scratch is an
> > industrial project the (free) Axiom community is far from being
> > able to consider.
> 
> I agree. When you compare Lisp to Python (as used in SAGE) - not
> the languages but rather the community), then it is clear that
> Lisp is part of the problem. When I spoke to SAGE developers about
> Axiom and I mentioned Lisp their eyes "glazed over" and then smiled
> until I pointed out that when Axiom was originally developed Lisp
> was about as old as Python is now during the development of SAGE.

It seems that their eyes do no "glaze over" Maxima, though.  :-)

> > It is supposed to. What I mean is being able to create domains in
> > compiled code with variables in their parameters (not change the
> > value of the variable after instantiation). With this much of the
> > Galois field factorisation of Axiom would be much easier to write
> > *and maintain* (currently, it is a kind of hack using the integers
> > and contradicting the grounding principles of Axiom).
> 
> I think you could expect a lot of help on this from Ralf Hemmecke
> and Martin Rubey. I am not entirely sure what you mean by "variables
> that do not change value after instantiation". I think this is the
> definition of a constant. So what you want to do should be possible.

Let's beeing specific:

    PrimeField(7)

and

    PrimeField(p)

both work in interpreted mode whereas the second one is not compiled
by the old compiler (it has already been discussed some time -- years
-- ago on axiom-dev).

> > I think it boils down to what Tim has summarized better than I
> > could. It is only a matter of respect. Respect THEIR choice and
> > draw you own conclusions from it.
> 
> My conclusion is that their choices (or actually rather lack of
> choice) has had a very negative impact on Axiom. I want them to
> stop this and license Aldor properly.

No. Only your wanting to (wait for and) fix this has had a negative
impact on Axiom (and might still have more).

You cannot blame others for your own choices. Still the question of
respect.

> > In French we have < un tiens vaut mieux que deux tu l'auras >
> > which sounds like "better now than tomorrow" and "promises are
> > for those willing to believe them". The reality is what we really
> > have. The rest is literature.
> 
> Yes, I am sympathetic to your point of view but for me right now
> this is too conservative. I want more and it is close enough that
> I feel it.

If you get Aldor as free software, You will have one more source of
waste of time (and debbuging, and integration, and so on...). It will
not speed up the Axiom developement pace but lower it much on the
contrary. (I do not believe there is a valuable Aldor only community
ready to join us, otherwise we would already see them in Axiom.)

> > > To me it is a matter of making best use of (potentially)
> > > available intellectual investment. Right now both Axiom and
> > > Aldor are suffering because what was meant to be together was
> > > "sold" separately.
> > 
> > This is where we differ. You are taking into account potentialities
> > (which make you not to move on the old compiler front) whereas I am
> > only considering reality.
> > 
> > By waiting long enough, you increase your chances to finally be
> > right. But the delay might be much too long to go anywhere on the
> > road to the 27 year horizon. (Time flies, you know?)

> Indeed! :-)

There is not any issue that cannot be finally solved by doing nothing.

Best regards,
Frédéric Lehobey