[Axiom-developer] ANSI documentation

[C Y]

--- Camm Maguire <address@hidden> wrote:
 
> Please accept my humblest apologies for my repeated silence here --
> time management you know.

No problem - your work on GCL proper is both more important and more
likely to bear fruit.  A literate Lisp may still be possible without
the direct inclusion of text copied from ANSI standard documents,
although it would be considerably more difficult.
 
> Here is the last I have on this -- I think the point of the
> distinction of the public draft was partially missed -- there may
> still be hope.

Yes, the distinction between public draft and official text may be
important.  I don't know if they can say anything official about a
draft, but the digging I did on freespec
http://wiki.alu.org/Project_FreeSpec seems to suggest that any other
possibility of coherent copyright response is minimal.

Looking at that response, two points jump out at me - one is that they
don't allow their standards to be published "for public distribution". 
That's not surprising, but this part is:  "if the INCITS LISP standard
is used in other documentation, the appropriate copyright approvals
from INCITS need to be obtained."  That seems to suggest there is a
distinction between publishing the standard as THE INCITS standard and
using the content of the standard. 

I suspect at least one of our intended uses of the text of the standard
(source level documentation in literate form) has probably never come
up before as a proposed use of the text of a standard.  If there is no
intent to claim any official status with the text, it would seem to me
the primary focus of the INCITS wouldn't be impacted - particularly
given the 10 year availability history of the drafts.  People get the
official text from INCITS because it's OFFICIAL.  Anything non-official
isn't really in direct competition, even if freely distributed and
modifiable.

I myself have never contacted INCITS directly, since a) I don't
officially represent any Lisp distribution or project and b) I didn't
want to gum up the works if you were already doing so.  (Judging by the
names listed on the original appeal, that was a wise move.)  There was
some question raised during the freespec investigation as to what
official copyright ownership the INCITS has on the text, but the above
makes it sound like they DO have copyright control.  If that's true, a
renewed effort to contact them may be of interest, particularly if the
goals are explained in more detail.  (I.e. here's why what we're
interested in doing wouldn't hurt your status as the distributor of the
official Lisp standard.)

Camm, is there any continued interest in this from the other heavy
hitters?  Both a follow-up on the inclusion of INCITS text in "other
documentation" and a focused question on the dpANS documentation (as
opposed to the official published text) may be worthwhile, particularly
if we stress that no claim will be made that the documents that result
are in any sense official copies.

Camm I can certainly understand if you don't want to spend cycles on
this, but a direct appeal by me alone will likely accomplish exactly
zilch.  Are any of the other co-signers of the original appeal still
actively interested?  The hints in those communications give rise to
some hope I didn't have for INCITS itself being of aid, and based on my
current knowledge of the situation they may be the only practical hope.

Cheers,
CY


       
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