[Aldor-l] [Axiom-developer] Axiom for Aldor or Aldor for Axiom?

[Gabriel Dos Reis]

"Bill Page" <bill.page at newsynthesis.org> writes:

| Dear Aldorados,
| 
| (:- "Aldorado" = heterographic homophone of Eldorado i.e. "the Golden One" :-)

Bill --

  Thanks for the report! 

[...]

| So the issue that arises: Now that Aldor is available in an open
| source form, how best to package Aldor and Axiom to facilitate this
| use? Currently Aldor's APL2 source license prohibits commercial use of
| the Aldor source code. This apparently makes it incompatible with GPL.
| However it might be important to observe that software that is
| licensed under modified BSD is both GPL and APL2-compatible - meaning
| that software licensed under modified BSD could be combined with
| Aldor's APL2 and released as one product under APL2. Axiom is an
| example of such a package.

There is a little snag.  Axiom currently uses GCL, which by its
licensing -- if I understand correctly -- makes the end product GPL,
for the components BFD and UNEXEC.  This, I believe, is a consequence
of the Lisp technology itself -- you don't use it; it invades you.

A way out might be for Axiom to use SBCL which is in public domain.

[...]

| I think that from a technical point of view right now the FriCAS fork
| of Axiom might be the most suitable system in which to re-implement
| Axiom libary code in Aldor since FriCAS now builds both the algebra
| code and the associated databases from directly from source using a
| new bootstrap procedure. This makes it possible to make deep changes
| in the Axiom algebra code without encountering Spad errors due to
| inconsistent database files. But Gaby (the primary developer of
| OpenAxiom) has also stated that it is the intention of the OpenAxiom
| project to pursue similar goals as the original Axiom developers. Does
| this include the goal of re-implementing (all or some part of) the
| Axiom library in Aldor?

It is OpenAxiom's intent to inter-operate with libraries written
Aldor.  However, at this moment, I do not anticipate a complete
rewrite of OpenAxiom's algebra in Aldor.  One thing at the time :-)

I would like, first, to improve inter-operability with Aldor libraries
from within Axiom (and vice versa)  through ISA like FOAM.

-- Gaby