Re: Use Emacs as the IDE for Wolfram Mathematica.

[Jean Louis]

* Christopher Dimech <dimech@gmx.com> [2021-05-24 11:28]:
> > > When any Emacs package is made, then the package has to be
> > > with GPL3+ compatible software license because it requires
> > > Emacs which is GPL3+ licensed.
> 
> That is a frequent misconception, if some code requires emacs, it
> does not mean that the license has to be GPL3+ compatible.  The
> license could be proprietary, open source, etc.

(✿╹◡╹) Maybe misconception is on my side or your side, I believe it is
in your side.

Emacs package is not quite same as proprietary Lisp code that could
run under free software programming language.

gcc is free compiler, and people could make proprietary software with
it. But such proprietary software does not change the gcc and not
necessarily depend on gcc to get run, but as soon as it depend on some
GPL component, then it cannot be made proprietary.

Now CLISP, Guile, and other programming languages may be GNU GPL
software. When you make a program to be run by Guile, CLISP, those
programs could be proprietary software as they do not change nor
modify the Guile, nor CLISP. They are just executed by free
software. But the overall result depends of components used in the
program, you cannot just include GPL components as you wish and want
in your proprietary program.

Would the Emacs Lisp program be exclusively run from command line as
run by Emacs as programming language then such program could be
licensed as proprietary software. But that also would depend if your
program is using the GPL components or not, which most probably would
use.

(⌐■_■) So the question is answered here:
https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#IfInterpreterIsGPL

If you just interpret the Emacs Lisp, it is fine, but question is, do
you bind to GPL components? Most probably you do.

Would you make an Emacs Lisp program that does not bind to any of the
GPL components then such program could be proprietary. But if you do
bind to any components, it cannot be proprietary.

For example, if you do something like:

(require 'seq)

That would make it no go, as your program clearly binds to GPL-ed
sequence manipulation library of Nicolas Petton. You cannot legally
make proprietary software by binding to GPL libraries.

As long as Emacs program has to be run within Emacs editor, it is
changing the editor, thus it is modification and program is not
considered stand-alone any more, it is combined program in copyright
terms, and cannot be proprietary.

> The problem is not about the support of a programming language.
> When emacs supports a language such as C, it would also support
> proprietary implementations of the language.  I see no problem with
> that.  But currently, there is no free software alternative to
> Wolfram Mathematica that benefits users.

I would say there is no alternative to free software, so I will not
use Wolfram Mathematica, I will not even look what it does, but when
somebody comes up and tells what features are needed we can maybe
find.

- SageMath is free software
- GNU Octave is free software
- R Programming Language is free software
- Jupyter is free software
- Maxima is free software


-- 
Jean

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