[Aldor-l] License issues

[Bill Page]

On 12/12/07, Pippijn van Steenhoven wrote:
> ...
> Personally, I am no big fan of the APL, but it's a good step
> forward from being entirely closed. Non-(or semi-)free licenses
> just don't fit my feeling about open source software and
> basically prohibit me from contributing, even though I would
> love to fix bugs and improve Aldor.
>

I agree with you and I think there are quite a few other people who
feel the same way. See for example:

http://axiom-wiki.newsynthesis.org/FreeAldor

I think it is important to continue to try to press this point to
people at aldor.org and the Numerical Algorithms Group (although I
know that they are aware of the issue). It is very unfortunate that
this preceived barrier still exists to more active involvement by
other talented people in the Aldor project.

During conversations at the Aldor Workshop this summer Stephen Watt
agreed that it would be a good idea to at least clarify in writing the
actually intentions of the APL2 license. When confronted with views
such as those you express above, Stephen has very clearly stated that
this is *not* the intention of the non-commerical use and
"royalty-free
license to use, modify or redistribute your modifications without
limitation" clauses in APL2. I hope that he or someone else at
aldor.org will find the time to create at least a draft of this
"interpretation" very soon.

BTW thank you very much Pippijn, for your extensive comments and
questions to this email list so far. :-)

Regards,
Bill Page.