Re: [Axiom-developer] Axiom meeting at ISSAC

[Stephen Wilson]

Camm Maguire <address@hidden> writes:

> Greetings!  AFAICT:
> 
> 1) You can build axiom atop a stripped down version of GCL under an
>    LGPL license, removing the conflict.  It could still never get into
>    Debian.
> 
> 2) The only rationale for a non-commercial use clause that I can see
>    is to keep open the possibility of a controlled separate licensing
>    to particular entites for commercial use.  Thus, open Aldor ideally
>    could make significant strides which would be available to the
>    commercial version, but the latter could "embrace and extend" the
>    former, effectively co-opting this work and potentially draining
>    open Aldor of its user and developer base.  The copyright holder
>    can argue that they earn the moral right to this option with the
>    initial source release, but the point as I see it is that no
>    volunteer should consider sinking in large quantities of time and
>    labor in scaling a steep learning curve and improving the system
>    for free if the system isn't effectively guaranteed a very long
>    lifetime as a vibrant open source project.  The calculus for a
>    volunteer is that the benefit accrued from one's own learning and
>    that of many others over a long payoff period more than compensates
>    for the time lost upfront scaling the learning curve and possibly
>    tailoring the system to any particular needs.
> 
> Just my $0.02.

Thats worth a lot more than $0.02, IMHO.


Sincerely,
Steve