[Axiom-developer] Fricas

[daly]

Andrey,

I suggest you visit
the CMUCL common lisp project, <http://www.cons.org/cmucl> and
the SBCL common lisp project, <http://www.sbcl.org/index.html>.

These are two separate projects, with completely separate goals
and resources. SBCL is a fork from CMUCL, started in 1999.
SBCL acknowledges this at <http://www.sbcl.org/history.html>.
There is no confusion in the common lisp community between these
two projects. In fact, they are sensitive to the confusion issue
on the history page and clearly state the differences.

The only cross-linking I can find on these sites is as follows:
CMUCL has a URL in the FAQ <http://www.cons.org/cmucl/FAQ.html>
SBCL has a URL in the history <http://www.sbcl.org/history.html>.
Other than that I do not see any connection. Please find other
examples.




Bill isn't just providing a link. He's providing project-specific
information. In particular, the page 
<http://wiki.axiom-developer.org/FriCAS>
explains the goals of the FriCAS project. It seems off-topic to me.

And the page
<http://wiki.axiom-developer.org/AxiomCommunity>
specifically links the FriCAS mailing lists as co-equal to the
Axiom mailing lists. This promotes confusion.

My problem with Bill's actions is that he does things like post FriCAS
patches on the axiom mailing list. This is entirely off-topic. You
never see patches to SBCL on the CMUCL mailing list, nor patches to
CMUCL on the SBCL mailing list. Both would be "off-topic". 

Bill's action clearly goes against fork behavior of at least one other
project. It goes against the idea of a fork as separate.  It also goes
against my objections without any attempt to reach agreement. 

An off-site wiki link to FriCAS would be appropriate as would a FAQ entry.
Anything beyond that promotes confusion.

There is no suggestion that anyone has to choose which project to work on.
But it is important to keep the projects clearly distinguished so there
is no confusion. There are over 100 computer algebra systems in the world.
None of them are confused with Axiom and FriCAS should not be an exception.

Tim