Re: [Axiom-developer] Axiom meeting at ISSAC

[C Y]

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

> On 7/31/07, C Y <address@hidden> wrote:
> > --- Bill Page <address@hidden> wrote:
> >
> > Fair enough if we get into the nitty gritty, but one question here
> > - is there anyone who is interested in using Aldor given this
> > non-commercial clause?
> 
> Certainly there are since there are some people using Aldor now and
> none of these would qualify as commercial as fas as I know.

At the moment, probably not.

> Can you suggest a credible commercial use?

Yes.  Suppose a scientific journal decides to adopt the literate
programming journal concept, using Axiom as its foundation.  The papers
in the journal would become part of the functionality of the system. 
In order to maintain the organization and ensure the development
activity needed to keep Axiom working on all target platforms, they
need enough of a revenue stream to survive.  A logical way to do this
is to have the latest and greatest papers and Axiom available only to
subscribers.  After some time period (5 years seems logical to me) the
previous work is released into the Modified BSD Axiom for the world to
build off of.  In this fashion, they maintain a large user base but get
support from researchers and companies needing the latest and greatest
work.  (Those people, incidently, would also be the most logical
financial supporters of such an effort.)  It would probably be a good
plan to have an option to publish for immediate release, at some extra
cost to the publishing institution, or to have a "fund" for each paper
that once it reaches a certain point, if that point is before the
automatic 5 year release, it is "let go" early.

The development of Ghostscript proceeds in a similar way, although it
is not commercial in its initial stages - the latest version uses
Aladdin public license (IIRC) and older versions are released as GPL.

If Axiom depended on Aldor, it could not be used for such an
undertaking.

> Do you know of any commercial use of Axiom?

At the moment, no.  I am not willing to postulate that there will never
be such use.

> I dont think this is really the issue. The
> problem as I see it is lack of compatibility with GPL.  According to
> Stephen this is deliiberate on the part of NAG. Apparently they
> object to the "viral" natue of GPL.

Erm.  That's very unfortunate, as it automatically introduces a
collision with a large part of the open source world.

> > So you don't agree with Tim's analysis here?
> >
>
http://lists.nongnu.org/archive/html/axiom-developer/2007-07/msg00147.html
> > ...
>
> I dont know anything about Intellectual property laws in the US but
> isnt "Axiom" too common a word to qualify as a trademark?

The fact that NAG DID have it registered as a trademark when it was a
commercial product would seem to be conclusive proof that it is not too
common to qualify.  Many other "common" words act as trademarks - have
a look in the uspto's trademark search engine.

Cheers,
CY


       
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